New hospital split forming, clinical services kept public
There has been some word on the public-private arrangement planned for the new $1.8 billion Sunshine Coast University Hospital.
Queensland Health Minister Lawrence Springborg says the Government will provide clinical services but will still outsource pathology, radiology, maintenance and cleaning.
The Queensland Government has been investigating the most effective way to run the hospital for the lowest cost, with a split arrangement of public and private services. The Government hopes to divide services to the sectors best equipped to deal with them.
Mr Springborg said he did not believe the private sector had the capacity to handle clinical services like the public sector can, and emphatically denied that his decision not to outsource clinical services was influenced by union demands.
“If the capacity was there, this would have been a fully outsourced model,” Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said.
“But the capacity wasn't there for such a major hospital for the clinical services.
“Absolutely no influence from the union bosses, absolutely none,” he added.
The significantly-sized Kawana hospital is slated for completion in 2016, expected to house 450 beds and 2,500 clinical staff.
“You've got a large-scale tertiary hospital - that is a huge facility and that's all a free public hospital service for the Sunshine Coast,” Maroochydore MP Fiona Simpson said.