What are nurses, doctors and experts saying?
“I am concerned about the financial viability of private hospitals, particularly those in regional areas and where they play an important role in the local community.”
Mark Butler
Federal Health Minister
Private hospital closures spark fears for industry
"It's clear that there's a crisis. There's been 70-plus private hospitals close in recent times. The private health insurers continue to make good profits. And so there's a rebalancing that is required because the insurers can't protect themselves from what's going on."
Chris Blake
CEO, St Vincent’s Hospital Group
Australian Financial Review
“The outcome is that the public system will hit a crisis point.”
Dr Fong
a former WA Health Department boss
The Australian
“We are seeing extraordinary cost and viability pressures on private hospitals around the country. We’re seeing private maternity hospitals closing at a rapid rate, and we’re seeing it become very, very difficult to get a private stay at a mental health hospital.”
Professor Stephen Robson
Australian Medical Association
Private hospitals open books for urgent ‘health check’
“If there’s only one other place for the patients to go, which is the public system, then emergency departments get clogged up with mental health patients who, if the private mental health hospitals were operating, we would have cared for some of those people.”
Dr Fong
a former WA Health Department boss
Private hospitals on life support amid funding woes
“We know that regional Australia is already facing serious inequities in their access to critical healthcare services and any further closures in our regions would be disastrous.”
Anne Ruston
Shadow Health Minister
Private hospital closures spark fears for industry
“We are so anxious about the current viability crisis in the private sector. It has to be one of the highest priorities of this country. We are seeing health insurers making record profits yet the hospitals are receiving so little from insurers to perform the surgery that they are becoming unviable. We know that the public health system has hundreds of thousands of people waiting for surgeries already. There is no way the public system could cope. The stakes are unbelievably high.”
Professor Stephen Robson
Australian Medical Association
Private hospital financial crisis prompt closures
"Running hospitals is one of the most expensive activities in the country now ... it is a national embarrassment that health insurers are strangling funding when we have a public hospital crisis where waiting lists for planned surgery is at unprecedented levels."
Professor Stephen Robson
Australian Medical Association
Sydney Morning Herald
“The private hospital sector is facing unprecedented financial and sustainability challenges.”
Christine Gee
Australian Private Hospitals Association
Private hospitals open books for urgent ‘health check’
“For many years costs experienced by private hospitals have risen faster than the indexation applied to benefits paid by private health insurers.”
Christine Gee
Australian Private Hospitals Association
Private hospitals open books for urgent ‘health check’
“It is totally unacceptable for insurers to put the squeeze on patients and hospitals while increasing their large profit margins and bank balances.”
Dr Katharine Bassett
Catholic Health Australia
The Australian
“The result is, as we have already seen at the end of 2023 and start of 2024, that hospitals will close or they will stop providing expensive services like maternity care. That’s lose-lose for private health insurers who are selling a product that claims to pay for these services while not supporting hospitals to deliver them.”
Michael Roff
Australian Private Hospitals Association
The Australian
“If "we" have forgotten that the health funds' first obligation of many, is to their members, not providers - then why are member payouts falling and members continually being denied services, while costs of policies are rising and PHI profits increasing more than anything else?”
Dr Michelle O’Brien
Specialist Pain Medicine Physician
LinkedIn
“The conundrum here is that you have private hospitals struggling to survive and at the same time you have the health insurance industry that’s enjoying record profitability.”
Michael Roff
Australian Private Hospitals Association
Australian private hospitals under ‘serious threat’ amid margin erosion, with more closures on the horizon
“I think it’s certainly obvious that insurers have had an improved financial position coming through Covid.’’
Craig McNally
CEO, Ramsay Health Care
Ramsay Health Care says hospitals are wearing the costs of inflation - and shutting down
“Private health funds have not increased what they pay to stay in line with inflation,... This is despite private health funds increasing premiums for their members and collectively sitting of billions of dollars in annual profit.”
Dr Fong
a former WA Health Department boss
Australian private hospitals under ‘serious threat’ amid margin erosion, with more closures on the horizon
“St Vincent’s, like many private hospitals, are at a breaking point.”
Dr Katharine Bassett
Catholic Health Australia
The Australian
“Certainly, the industry across the board is suffering more than I’ve seen it.”
Craig McNally
CEO, Ramsay Health Care
Ramsay Health Care warns of hospital closures as costs blow out
