‘Very serious': Health charity investigated after Las Vegas trip
Health authorities are investigating a taxpayer-funded regional health service after it emerged senior bosses spent more than $400,000 on all-expenses-paid trips to New Zealand, Canada and Las Vegas, allegedly restricted abortions and closed the books to new patients after failing to replace key staff.
Leaders from CTG Aboriginal Health, which receives more than $10 million in state and federal funding annually on top of nearly $5 million in non-government revenue, will meet bureaucrats from Commonwealth, state and local funding bodies on Thursday to respond to allegations first raised by staff and revealed by the Herald, said two government sources not authorised to speak publicly.
In a letter to the board in August last year, current and former staff expressed outrage that chief executive Phil Naden and senior board members used the charity's funds to travel to New Zealand, India, Canada and the NRL opening round in Las Vegas, while new patients were turned away from the clinic because of staff shortages and rising demand.
'I feel like headbutting the wall most days because we can't provide the services that our community needs,' one former employee said.
Chair Brendon Harris said the trips were approved by the board and funded by non-government revenue.
Health Minister Mark Butler said on Wednesday he had sought a briefing from the Department of Health and Aged Care to ensure the $6.8 million it provides to the service each year was being spent 'in line with their grant agreements'.
'The allegations raised in the story are very serious,' Butler said on Wednesday. 'Aboriginal Medical Services play a critical role in our health care system. The majority offer outstanding health care services for First Nations Australians.'
Just one full-time GP remains at the Dubbo clinic after more than half of 20 staff members resigned at the end of last year. The service breakdown threatens to derail efforts to improve the health of some 14,000 Indigenous people in the region, who suffer from heart disease, kidney disease and lung conditions at rates higher than the state and national average.
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An AFP spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday individuals in protective custody are not under arrest and the man was "not restrained at any point by AFP officers". The AFP confirmed the man was detained under the public intoxication section of the NT Police Administration Act. The man was taken to hospital so he could be "monitored while sobering up" and he presented no medical concerns while being transported, the spokesperson said. But when he arrived at the hospital he "experienced a sudden and serious medical episode" and lost consciousness. The officers involved are being supported by AFP welfare officers. NT Police will prepare a report for the coroner. 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Every three months, the residents of NSW are given a status update on the performance of their state's public health system. The quarterly Bureau of Health Information report paints a picture of how the system is functioning, from the number of ambulance call-outs to wait times in emergency and how long the average patient stays at hospital. Of particular interest since the pandemic – and covered exhaustively by the Herald – has been the elective surgery waitlist, which rose to record lengths when COVID-19 precautions caused the postponement of thousands of non-urgent operations. In the 2023 state election, NSW Labor ran on a platform of reducing the elective surgery waitlist, announcing a surgical taskforce to investigate ways to clear the list, sparing patients from the poor health outcomes that can come from waiting longer than recommended for life-changing operations, including hip and knee replacements, eye surgery, and cardiothoracic procedures. By the end of that year, the number of patients overdue for surgery had declined to pre-pandemic levels. But, as the Herald reported following the release of the latest BHI quarterly data in March, the number of patients overdue for elective surgery in NSW public hospitals tripled between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024. Loading While nowhere near the 18,000-person waitlist left after NSW's Delta lockdown in late 2021, such a sharp upward trend in the number of people waiting too long for operations has not been seen outside of periods of pandemic restrictions. Eye surgeries, joint replacements and tonsillectomies were the procedures with the largest backlogs. Doctors speaking about the release of those figures put the increase down to staff shortages and budget cuts. But, as Herald health editor Kate Aubusson reports today, doubts have been cast over whether the pressure to meet KPIs at some hospitals had led to surgeries being strategically categorised, so they did not appear as overdue on the books. Among the allegations made by doctors at Sydney's RPA and Westmead hospitals, which follow an ABC investigation into similar behaviour at Orange Hospital last month, are that hospitals have been effectively refusing patients because they will not be able to perform their surgery within the recommended timeframe, or changing the categories of patients.
