2 days Ago By Alex Mitchell
A powerful report into a controversial hospital is set to land as parents of a newborn baby who died at the facility reveal their emotional toll. or signup to continue reading Harper Atkinson suffered complications at birth at Sydney's Northern Beaches Hospital in February, before her death at a separate facility the following day. It is the same hospital where toddler Joe Massa collapsed and died in September 2024 after a three-hour wait in the emergency department.
NSW auditor-general Bola Oyetunji is set to release a report into the hospital assessing the public-private partnership that governs the facility and if it delivers effective healthcare. Since the two deaths at Northern Beaches, Premier Chris Minns has banned public-private healthcare partnerships and said hospitals should not be driven by profits. Harper's parents have detailed the ordeal of losing their child, with mother Leah forced to wait for an on-call team to arrive to begin an emergency caesarean section.
Ms Pitman told ABC's 7.30 program she was "incredibly angry" she had been forced to wait, rather than receiving immediate treatment that she felt could have saved her daughter. Northern Beaches Hospital does not run a 24-hour theatre on weekend nights, with an on-call team required to attend within 30 minutes to meet legal and ethical guidelines.
Harper did not take her first breath for 21 minutes and her parents turned off life support the day after her birth. Health Minister Ryan Park said the on-call arrangements were not uncommon on weekends, but he added a review into the incident would shed more light on their suitability. "We want to make sure we deliver the very best health care to people, and, clearly, when we don't do that .
.. people feel let down, and it's our opportunity to, to have a look at it," he told Sydney radio 2GB.
"(My) heart goes out to the family, and this is unfathomable grief ...
they say to lose a child is the worst grief of all and I can't begin to imagine what they're going through." Ms Pitman said she felt Harper's death could have been avoided without her wait for surgery. "I remember asking them .
.. 'why aren't we going anywhere?' They kept explaining, 'theatre is not ready, theatre is not ready'," she said.
"I'm obviously sad every single day she's not here with us, but (there is) so much anger and frustration knowing that she could be, and that her death, we feel, was completely preventable." Healthscope would not discuss the specifics of the death as an official review was under way, but the company said on-call arrangements met NSW health policy and other guidelines. It operates 38 hospitals across the country and remains contracted to operate Northern Beaches Hospital until 2038.
But financial turmoil at the Canadian-controlled firm has placed its future in doubt. Healthscope has said it would like to return control of the hospital to public hands, citing the government's banning of the relevant partnership model. The government has set up a task force to run the rule over a potential sale, but leaders have repeatedly stated they will not deliver Healthscope a financial windfall.
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