Two independent politicians, Sophie Scamps and Michael Regan, have announced an inquiry into the privatised Northern Beaches Hospital. What’s the scam?
The scam is doctors, nurses, and other medical staff have been complaining for some time about cost-cutting and the consequent risk to patient care. The hospital is controlled by a secretive entity in the Cayman Islands following an ASX takeover of private hospital group Healthscope (which owns 41 private hospitals across Australia) by the financial engineering group Brookfield.
As revealed here, the hospital appears to charge the government at least two times the cost of a public bed than does Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital.
Caymans Privatisation: Northern Beaches Hospital limps into financial triage
NSW Auditor General Bola Oyetunjil has agreed to look into the financial structure of the group (long questioned in these pages as complex, excessively secretive and tax-avoiding).
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.