On defence: Health Minister Jillian Skinner believes there is ample room for the Royal North Shore Hospital to expand, even if a section of its land is sold or leased. Photo: Dean Osland
Royal North Shore Hospital will be unable to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding local population after Health Minister Jillian Skinner backflipped on a pledge not to sell part of its campus, doctors claim.
Senior clinicians urged the minister on Monday to stick by her promise to retain the hospital land, and halt plans to divest the southern portion of the hospital campus, known as zone eight.
But Mrs Skinner confirmed her intention to divest the land either by selling it or via a long-term lease, with expressions of interest for the site having closed on November 20.
The tertiary hospital is situated in a growth corridor and takes complex cases from around NSW, as one of the major centres for trauma, burns, spinal injuries and hand operations.
Statewide, patient numbers are forecasted to double by 2031.
Zone eight represents 8 per cent of the site, and the government expects to reap $97 million from its divestment.
It will be designated for health support service and Ministry of Health buildings.
Medical Staff Council representative Bruce Cooper said the life expectancy of a hospital was only 30 to 40 years and the land should remain in public hands for future expansion.
“Because of changes in technology and changes in disease, there often needs to be a significant rethink in how you manage patients,” Dr Cooper said.
“If you lease that land, then the campus becomes potentially so small that it just chokes itself.”
Mrs Skinner maintains there is ample space on the campus for the hospital to expand.
“Under the master plan, the current clinical and support area on site has the potential to increase by 100 per cent to support growth in clinical services,” she said.
Monday’s meeting came as the war of words between doctors and their political taskmasters ventures into the absurd, with health and ministry officials claiming senior doctors signed off on a master plan the clinicians professed never to have seen.
Lane Cove MP Anthony Roberts was forced to retract his assertion on 2GB that senior doctors had signed off on the plan, after radio announcer Ray Hadley read out a letter from the doctors to the local health district board denying this was the case.
Senior emergency specialist Justin Bowra said doctors’ requests for access to the master plan were repeatedly denied.
“What’s so secretive about this master plan?” Dr Bowra said.
“We’ve been told that they can’t find it; we’ve been told it was too technical for us to understand; we’ve also been told it was too heavy.”
More than 13,000 people have signed a petition for the land to remain in public hands.
A spokeswoman for the Northern Sydney Local Health District said in an emailed statement that the master plan had never been lost. The health district released a 70-page document to the Medical Staff Council on Monday.
“Senior clinicians on the master plan executive working group did sign off on the zonal master plan, but it was never the remit of the [group] to decide how the support services in zone eight would be procured,” the spokeswoman said.