Healthscope officials Chris Davey and Nick Champness with Bendigo Health's John Mulder and Dr Andre Nel.

Editorial: Time will tell if Healthscope can deliverPRIVATE provider Healthscope has guaranteed jobs and conditions for staff when it takes over Bendigo Health’s pathology service.Bendigo Health chief John Mulder yesterday announced Healthscope would receive a five-year performance-based contract.He said Healthscope would take over the hospital’s pathology services in May and continue to bulk bill.Mr Mulder said the organisation would save “tens of millions of dollars” that could be invested back into the health organisation.He said “significant redundancies” would have resulted if Bendigo Health had stuck with its in-house pathology team.“Given the assurances we have around quality and given the significant new services that we will be able to introduce with the savings generated and given the guarantees of no loss of job, the board and executive would have been negligent to continue with the in-house service,” Mr Mulder said.The Bendigo Advertiser last week revealed Healthscope was one of two private companies vying for the Bendigo Health contract.“Our immediate concern is to maintain employment, maintain a range of testing and ensure the status quo so there is no disruption to staff and patients,” chief operating officer Nick Champness said.“We are quality-driven. We are absolutely driven to maintain, or where possible, to improve the level of service the laboratory provides to the Bendigo community and the adjacent regions.”The company operates services in eight Victorian public hospitals including at Castlemaine, Kyneton and Swan Hill. Victorian manager Christine Davey said Healthscope’s Castlemaine lab would not be affected by the Bendigo Health agreement.But Medical Association of Victoria’s Rosemary Kelly ridiculed the decision to outsource pathology.The union led a campaign against the privatisation, attracting more than 6000 signatures on a petition.“Bendigo Health is building a new state-of-the-art teaching hospital. Privatising the pathology service in this context is clearly the wrong decision,” Dr Kelly said.“The in-house team rose to the challenge of finding efficiencies, but hospital management was not deterred from its privatisation goal.”Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards called on Health Minister David Davis to intervene and said the privation was a “slap in the face to the Bendigo community”.“This decision goes against the sentiment expressed by over 6000 people who signed a petition, against the staff who have worked so hard to deliver a quality service and against the patients who should not have to pay for a service like this in a public hospital,” Ms Edwards said.

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Bendigo Pathology to go private

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