Australia's private hospital capacity joins the COVID-19 fight

Tuesday 31 March 2020

Australia's private hospital capacity joins the COVID-19 fight
A new partnership with the Commonwealth Government will guarantee the viability of Australia's private hospital
sector, ensuring its full capacity is available for the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Health Minister Greg Hunt announced the agreement today, saying the Commonwealth would underwrite private
hospitals to keep them open, clinicians employed and high quality private hospital care available to Australians.

Australian Private Hospital Association (APHA) CEO Michael Roff welcomed the move, saying it gave the sector some
certainty in challenging times.

"This is about private hospitals stepping up to the plate and doing whatever is required to help the country get
through this pandemic.

"We have heard the word unprecedented a lot in the past few months, and what private hospitals are agreeing to
here is unprecedented."
Mr Roff said hospital capacity would be offered under a cost recovery basis so the 657 hospitals, 35,000 beds,
100,000 staff including 57,000 nurses are available and integrated into the pandemic response to create one health
system devoted to that response – that is the number one goal of this deal.

He said the deal also means there will be a private hospital system on the other side of the crisis.

"While the health system responds to the pandemic, a lot of what it normally does must be deferred. When the
pandemic is over, we are going to need all of the capacity of the private hospital system to deal with the backlog of
essential surgery. This deal means the private hospital system will be there to address that backlog.

"This is definitely not business as usual and everybody working in the health system needs to understand that what
they were doing three or four weeks ago is not what they will be doing in three or four weeks' time.

"The states and territories now need to urgently finalise deals with private hospitals. We think the Victorian proposal
provides a good model that could be picked up by other states to ensure there is no delay in reaching agreements,"
he said.

-ENDS-

Media contact APHA: Frith Rayner, Director Communications and Marketing, 0413 971 999.

The Australian Private Hospitals Association (APHA) is the peak industry body representing the private hospital and
day surgery sector. The private hospital sector treats 4.5 million patients a year, including treatment of a third of
chemotherapy, 60 percent of all surgery, 74 percent of all elective musculoskeletal surgery and 80 percent of
rehabilitation.

Level 3 /11 National Circ, Barton ACT 2600. PO Box 4502, Kingston ACT 2604. [T] 02 6273 9000 [F] 02 6273 7000
[E] [W] www.apha.org.au [FB] ValuingPrivateHospitals [Twitter] @priv8hospitals
ABN 82 008 623 809

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