Back down on stand-alone family planning clinic
The State Government has backed away from building a stand-alone clinic next to Midland Health Campus to carry out “restricted procedures” which the hospital’s Catholic operator refuses to provide on religious grounds.
The Government had planned to build the separate clinic for abortions, sterilisations and contraceptive health on the corner of Lord Street as a way of ensuring patients in the district did not miss out on any services as a result of privatising MHC.
The plan caused a stir in June when bureaucrats revealed St John of God Health Care would not share infrastructure – including car parking and utilities – with the separate clinic on Lord Street.
Health Minister Kim Hames insisted local patients would get a full suite of services at Midland, with the private sector to design, build and run the separate facility.
Yesterday, Dr Hames said expressions of interest had been “less than what we expected” but said a plan would be in place by the time MHC opened in November.
“What I’m fully committed to is making sure all those patients are cared for, we are not saying at this stage exactly how we will do that,” he said.
Shadow health minister Roger Cook said it was always going to be difficult to attract a private provider to such a restricted site to carry out just 250 “restricted services” a year.
“It’s a lesson that comes from privatisation,” he said.
“If it offends the operator or doesn’t stack up as business case you simply lose the services which should be run by the public, for the public.”
St John outbid two other providers in June 2012 to win a 23-year, $5 billion contract to run Midland Health Campus, which will have 307 public and 60 private beds.
Premier Colin Barnett said last year he wished he had been alerted to the restricted services offered by St John when the contract went through Cabinet, but would have awarded it to the Catholic provider anyway.
Dr Hames justified the privatisation on the grounds it would be $1.5 billion more expensive for the Government to run MHC over the life of the contract.
