May 2, 2015
South Burnett Regional Council is willing to offer Pulse Health the use of the South Burnett Private Hospital building in Kingaroy rent-free if they agree to keep the doors of the facility open.
This would mean a slug to the Council Budget of $60,000 per year.
Phillipa Blakey, the CEO of the Sydney-based Pulse Health, admitted yesterday the future of the private hospital in Kingaroy was “under consideration” after the company dropped a bombshell to Council in an email saying the facility could close on June 30.
South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann, speaking at the official Relay For Life launch on Friday morning, told his audience of business people that the South Burnett had to “rise up” to overturn the decision of Pulse Health.
“There’s something the people of the South Burnett simply must do,” he said.
“(It has been reported that) Pulse Health are going to close our private hospital on June 30. This simply can’t happen.”
Mayor Kratzmann said the decision by Pulse Health could be changed but only through “people power”.
“South Burnett Regional Council, the Board – which Cr Tessmann and myself are on – have been trying to keep (the private hospital) alive ever since I’ve been the mayor,” he said.
“It looked like we might have lost it a few years ago but we were able to renegotiate a lease with Pulse Health.
“But they just sent us an email during the week that due to lack of support, lack of numbers – they need bed numbers around 12 per day, they are currently around five or six.
“Simply, if the hospital closes it will not reopen because the requirements to reopen a hospital that is not open – as strange as that sounds – would be far greater than what we’ve got down there at the moment.
“Cr Tessmann and I are in negotiations with Pulse Health as we speak and our staff are doing a lot of work.
“Your Council has done everything in our power. We agreed during the week at a meeting to give them a complete rent respite so we would not charge them rent, which is a blow to Council finances.
“But that’s how important Council believes the hospital is.
“Through South Burnett Directions we are so close to getting chemo services at the private hospital.
“Someone remarked to me yesterday when I spoke about it, “Well, it’s only for those people with private health insurance”
“I find that absolutely disgraceful that anybody in the South Burnett could say that.
“Yes, that is a part of what the hospital service does but it also has all those specialists that come up there, it is also for our returned servicemen who have a Gold Card whether they have private health insurance or not.
“It simply can’t close.
“I tossed and turned last night to think about it and I thought. well we as a Council have done all we can to keep it open but we need to do more. and that’s people power. It’s as simple as that …
“We can change this. We can change Pulse Health. We can change their decision if the people of the South Burnett and everybody (gets together), whether you have private health insurance or not …
“Pulse Health staying open will keep people alive.
“We debated as Council about whether we could afford to give it to them rent-free and save $60,000. But what’s a life worth? Much more than $60,000 …
“If other people want to have a go at me and say: ‘You are spending ratepayers’ money’, well, I am happy to take them on and stand on the top of a mountain and say ‘We have to keep our hospital open’.
“We need your support. We need all the media’s support to get behind this. We need the people of the South Burnett to rise up and say this is not good enough.
“We need to tell our doctors that they need to send their patients to Kingaroy for day surgery, for minor surgery, not to Toowoomba.
“We need people who have got private health insurance if you have to go in for a small operation, to say you need the (Kingaroy) service.
“We need to tell the public hospital to stop treating private patients in the public hospital because once Pulse Health closes the South Burnett Private Hospital we won’t have enough beds in the Kingaroy General Hospital to cover for everybody who gets crook in the South Burnett …
“So it’s really important. We need to do it. We need to change it around … we need to stand up as a group in the South Burnett and say “enough’s enough” we want to keep our hospital.
“And with your support Damien and I as Board members will lead that charge and hopefully the decision that they made this week.”
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Pulse Health issued a statement this afternoon:
Pulse Health, the ASX-listed operator of the South Burnett Private Hospital in Queensland, confirms that the future of the Hospital is under consideration.
It is loss-making and has been struggling for some time to improve profitability.
Pulse Health CEO, Ms Phillipa Blakey, said today the company is now considering the future of the hospital, and will be meeting with staff, doctors and other stakeholders within the next two weeks for discussions.
Pulse has been working closely and confidentially with the South Burnett Regional Council which owns the building to find ways to improve its financial performance.
southburnett.com.au asked Ms Blakey if the review of the South Burnett Private Hospital was in any way linked to Pulse Health’s current development of a new surgical hospital on the Gold Coast, to open in September, or its April 30 acquisition of a mental health facility, The Hills Clinic, in Sydney.
The Hills was purchased for an initial payment of $27.7 million cash after Pulse negotiated a new $42 million debt facility with the National Australia Bank.
No there is no link.
* * *
Who is Pulse Health?
The listed company currently operates eight private hospitals and a community care business in Queensland and NSW.
It describes itself as a niche operator of specialist private hospitals.
It is currently developing a new 24-bed surgical hospital on the Gold Coast which will have six operating theatres. This is due to open in September this year.
In a presentation to shareholders in February, CEO Phillipa Blakey and CFO Mark Hays described the South Burnett Private Hospital as an acute surgical and medical hospital with 22 beds and a single operating theatre. They noted that bed utilisation “fluctuated with seasonal demand”.
In a performance overview, shareholders were told Pulse Health’s revenue from its hospitals had continued to grow over the past five years, rising 13 per cent to $28.22 million.
The South Burnett contributed 4 per cent of this, equivalent to Pulse’s facility at Bega. Other hospitals listed were Mackay 5pc, Gympie 11pc, Eden 20pc, Forster 27pc and Westmead 29pc.
In the half-year to December 31, 2014, Pulse Health reported a net profit of $1.26 million, up 36 per cent from the previous year.
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