Concerns grow over private hospital closures
Andy Park: Amid the ongoing Healthscope saga, patients are perplexed about what it means for them. Now in another challenge for the health sector, a private psychiatric hospital in Brisbane has announced its closure. The Australian Medical Association says private health insurance customers are now reconsidering their investment. Elizabeth Cramsie reports.
Elizabeth Cramsie: Jess McClusky is pregnant with her second child, but this time around she won't be able to give birth in the hospital of her choice.
Jess McClusky: People that have laboured in hallways and those kinds of things, so that's one of the major concerns I think for me, having to go to the public hospital, where I know that at the private, that doesn't happen.
Elizabeth Cramsie: Healthscope, which operates Darwin's only private hospital, has gone into receivership, and from next week there will be no private maternity services in Darwin. For patients like Jess, who pay for private health insurance, the move is making them reconsider.
Jess McClusky: If you're paying for the insurance and you can't get anything for it, what's the point? What's the point in having it?
Elizabeth Cramsie: But the upheaval in hospital care is not just limited to those operated by Healthscope. Now a major private Queensland hospital has announced it will close its doors. Management of Toowong Private Psychiatric Hospital says it's being forced to close due to insufficient payments provided by private health insurers. It's something that was put to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on ABC Radio Brisbane yesterday.
Anthony Albanese: Quite clearly the health insurers need to pay additional money for the private health care that's provided and that is creating an issue across the board.
Elizabeth Cramsie: Brett Heffernan is the Chief Executive of the Australian Private Hospital Alliance.
Brett Heffernan: Toowong Private Hospital, it's been an institution in Brisbane, been there for 50 years. It's had the same management team for 30 years and they're closing their doors all because the health insurance industry refused to pay their bills in full.
Elizabeth Cramsie: With private hospitals accounting for 62% of all acute mental health care across Australia, Brett Heffernan warns more are dangerously close to shutting down.
Brett Heffernan: I've got another eight or so, most of which are mental health hospitals, who are earmarked for closure. Now, there's no comparison between public and private hospital mental health care. They do two very different things. So when these private mental health facilities shut down, there's pretty much nowhere for the patients to go.
Elizabeth Cramsie: Dr Danielle McMullen is the President of the Australian Medical Association.
Dr Danielle McMullen: It's really important that our governments come together with insurers and private hospitals and groups like the AMA, we think under a private health system authority, to really drive the reforms that we need to see.
Elizabeth Cramsie: In a statement, Federal Health Minister Mark Butler says the solutions lie with the insurers and hospitals working together. It's incumbent on them to come together and find solutions.
Andy Park: Elizabeth Cramsie there and private health insurers have been approached for comment.
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