Latest news with #maternityservices
ABC News
30-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
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.
Irish Times
18-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
Oireachtas health committee must hear from HSE on Portiuncula maternity services, says Opposition
The Oireachtas health committee will need to examine and hear from Health Service Executive officials about maternity services at Portiuncula University Hospital in Co Galway , Opposition TDs have said. The Irish Times revealed last week that a further external review into maternity care at the Ballinasloe hospital has begun following the death of a baby in recent weeks. It is the 10th review to take place into the care given to women and babies at the hospital. The new Oireachtas health committee will meet for the first time on Wednesday. Sinn Féin 's health spokesperson David Cullinane said it is 'important that all of the reviews are completed and that maternity services are safe at Portiuncula'. READ MORE 'This is an important issue of patient safety, and the Oireachtas health committee will need to examine it.' Labour 's health spokesperson Marie Sherlock said the committee 'needs to hear from the HSE as to the status of those reviews'. 'Questions need to be asked now about what exactly is going on here,' she said. 'The delay in the reporting of the reviews and the addition of yet another review could certainly prompt a crisis of confidence in services at Portiuncula, which we don't want to see happen,' she said. [ Death of baby at Portiuncula Hospital leads to new review Opens in new window ] Ms Sherlock said she was 'really taken aback' when she heard 'yet another review' had to be initiated. 'Ultimately, confidence in our maternity services right across the country depends on people being updated as to what's happening when there have been successive issues in one particular maternity unit.' Nine external reviews were announced in January, after six babies delivered in 2024 and one in 2025 had hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) – a reduction in the supply of blood or oxygen to a baby's brain before, during or after birth. Six of these babies were referred for neonatal therapeutic hypothermia known as neonatal cooling. Two stillbirths occurred at the hospital in 2023, the circumstances of which are also being reviewed externally. An external management team remains in place at the hospital to oversee all elements of maternity and neonatal care. Stephen McMahon, chairman of the Irish Patients Association , a patient advocacy group, said that, with 10 reviews ongoing at the hospital, the matter needs to be 'independently investigated up to and beyond the board of the HSE'. Mr McMahon said the association would like to know if there have been any formal interim reports or updates on the process. A spokesperson for Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she is 'very aware of the very sad death of a baby who was recently born at Portiuncula University Hospital and that an external review has commenced'. 'She extends her deepest condolences to the family at this devastating time,' the spokesperson said. The Minister understands a number of other external reviews ongoing at the hospital are expected to be completed 'soon', the spokesperson said, adding that these reports will be shared with the families and other stakeholders, including the Minister, once complete.
BBC News
13-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Temporary closure for Yeovil maternity unit after warning
A hospital's birthing service is to close for six months amid a warning from the health watchdog about its paediatric District Hospital was served a warning notice by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). It comes after a series of earlier critical reports on Somerset's maternity statement on the paediatric service said the warning was issued "for failing to meet the regulations related to staffing and governance systems".It means the only maternity unit in Somerset left fully open is at Taunton's Musgrove Park Hospital. There are also units in Bath and Dorchester. The paediatric staffing problems are understood to have a knock-on for maternity services which have resulted in the temporary closure of birthing services at maternity services, like antenatal appointments, are expected to continue at Yeovil during the six month 1,200 babies were born at Yeovil District Hospital last year, with 3,000 births at Musgrove Park news of the birthing services closure comes a year after a critical report into maternity services at both hospitals in watchdog found there was expired milk in a fridge at Musgrove Park and criticised staff in Yeovil for not washing their hands when entering clinical CQC acknowledged staff at the trust were "keen to improve the services and some of the problems were out of local leaders' control".Chief executive for Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Peter Lewis, said at the time: "The real issue is that we do recognise that we have fallen short of the standards that are expected and the standards that we would expect."It's important to say sorry to the families that do use our services, but also sorry to the colleagues that work very hard in those services, some of which the CQC has recognised in a positive way."A report to a Somerset Council health scrutiny committee this week said the Trust had made "significant progress", completing 92% of all improvement actions outlined in the CQC maternity inspection reports.
