The News Story: Northern Beaches Hospital experience leaves mother ‘scared’ to have more children there

Title – “Patient not told of ‘life-threatening’ incident after caesarean at Northern Beaches Hospital”

Source – Sydney Morning Herald

Date – 25 November 2018

Author – Kate Aubusson

URL – https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/patient-not-told-of-life-threatening-incident-after-caesarean-at-northern-beaches-hospital-20181123-p50hze.html 

Title – “Raining resignations: New hospital’s woes drag on as anaesthetics director steps down”

Source – Sydney Morning Herald

Date – 6 December 2018

 Author – Kate Aubusson

URL – https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/northern-beaches-hospital-nbh-anaesthetics-director-20181206-p50kjp.html

Title – “Medical director of beleaguered Northern Beaches Hospital Louise Messara moves on”

Source – Sydney Morning Herald

Date – 3 December 2018

Author – Kate Aubusson

URL – https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/medical-director-of-beleaguered-northern-beaches-hospital-louise-messara-moves-on-20181203-p50jyz.html

Title – “Former medical director considering defamation action against doctor at troubled hospital”

Source – Sydney Morning Herald

Date – 4 December 2018

Author – Kate Aubusson

URL – https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/former-medical-director-considering-defamation-action-against-doctor-at-troubled-hospital-20181204-p50k44.html

Title – “No body bags, running out of vital drugs: Sydney’s newest hospital is a ‘shambles’”

Source – Sydney Morning Herald

Date – 17 November 2018

Author – Kate Aubusson

URL – https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/no-body-bags-running-out-of-vital-drugs-sydney-newest-hospital-is-a-shambles-20181116-p50geb.html

Title – “’Hiccups’: concerns played down at Northern Beaches Hospital opening”

Source – Sydney Morning Herald

Date – 19 November 2018

Author – Kate Aubusson

URL – https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hiccups-concerns-played-down-at-northern-beaches-hospital-opening-20181119-p50gz6.html 

Title – “Northern Beaches Hospital doctors accuse operators of being ‘arrogant’ and ‘incompetent’”

Source – ABC

Date – 18 November 2018

Author – Lily Mayers

URL – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-18/northern-beaches-hospital-doctors-speak-out/10508510

Title – “Northern Beaches Hospital has ‘fundamental failings’ according to leaked email from doctor”

Source – ABC

Date – 3 December 2018

Author – Nicole Chettle

URL – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-03/northern-beaches-hospital-failing-patients-according-to-doctor/10575622

Title – “Healthscope’s Northern Beaches Hospital: teething problems or more?”

Source – Financial Review

Date – 21 November 2018

Author – Jemima Whyte and Carrie LaFrenz

URL – https://www.afr.com/business/health/healthscopes-northern-beaches-hospital-teething-problems-or-more-20181121-h185tu

Title – “Healthscope boss Gordon Ballantyne digs in on Northern Beaches woes”

Source – Financial Review

Date – 25 November 2018

Author – Carrie LaFrenz

URL – https://www.afr.com/business/health/hospitals-and-gps/healthscope-boss-gordon-ballantyne-digs-in-on-northern-beaches-woes-20181123-h189mp

Title – “NSW Health denies push to Northern Beaches Hospital CEO”

Source – Financial Review

Date – 2 December 2018

Author – Carrie LaFrenz

URL – https://www.afr.com/business/health/hospitals-and-gps/nsw-health-denies-push-to-northern-beaches-hospital-ceo-20181130-h18jtg

Title – “Northern Beaches Hospital passed problems: Premier”

Source – The Daily Telegraph

Date – 19 November 2018

Author – Correspondent

URL – https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/raw-northern-beaches-hospital-passed-problems-premier/video/6e820786f911dbf46c053b4849a458df

Table 1. Coverage of the issue in the four media sources

(Source: Roymorgan.com 2018 and About.abc.net.au 2018)

                                                               Fig 1. Graph showing monthly circulation

                                                                          (Source: Created by author)

                                           Fig 2. Graph showing volume of articles published in percentage

                                                                     (Source: Created by author)

Concerns expressed by doctors and patients at Northern Beaches Hospital

The analysis above demonstrates the problems faced by the newly inaugurated Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) based in Sydney, Australia and its coverage by different newspapers online. The issue that was focused was news published in ABC website with the headline “Northern Beaches Hospital experience leaves mother ‘scared’ to have more children there” (Abc.net.au, 2018). The story was about one Astrid McCrank who delivered her first baby on November 5 and the ordeal she had to face following the delivery. McCrank had a complicate caesarean surgery but both the baby and she survived. However, due to shortage of hospital staff, equipments and even supplies, Astrid had to face grave difficulties. She expressed fear at the situation she had to face and stated that the experience has scared her away “from having another child soon, especially at the hospital” (ABC News, 2018). The hospital also made headlines when the union of doctors representing the hospital’s staff accused the operators of “being incompetent and driven by profit before patient care”. The junior doctors stated that Healthscope is just concerned about earning profits even if it meant compromising the safety and security of the patients and the staff. Another ABC article referred to the issue of Astrid McCrank surviving caesarean but undergoing harsh times post the operation. One of the doctors at the NBH facility emailed about the poor management and failure to fulfill its primary goal of providing safety to the patients. The leaked email also referred to Astrid’s case stating the failure of the hospital in all departments includes the staff, its training, equipments and supplies (Aubusson, 2018).

It was not the first incident of the newly opened AU$ 600 million facility that raised questions about its viability. Several issues surfaced within months of its inauguration. The media coverage list included twelve articles from four media sources that include ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review and The Daily Telegraph. Out of these four sources, the Sydney Morning Herald provided bulk of coverage to the issue. The article also put forth the issues like shortage of staff, supplies, confusion and systemic failures at the hospital since it opened to public. Another article highlighted the problem of medical supplies shortage at the newest hospital in Sydney (Aubusson, 2018). The hospital management only touted the stunning view the hospital provides from every room, of the Northern Beaches. Other articles also highlighted the resignations and expulsions of the directors and the CEO. Healthscope, the private company that operates Northern Beaches Hospital has come under fire after consistent resignations and complaints have come from the hospital staff. The response to these issues by the hospital administration and even the health ministry, as published in various articles of SMH show the negligence of the institution and consequent failure in addressing the issues. While the Health Minister Brad Hazzard addressed the concerns as just “teething problems” and “hiccups”, the administrators at NBH responded to it with no seriousness (Aubusson, 2018).

Resignation of CEO and director at Northern Beaches Hospital

The Australian Financial Review further highlighted the negligence of Healthscope officials and the hospital administration’s response as well that termed the issues as “teething problems” (Afr.com, 2018). The resignation of CEO Deborah Latta just within a month after its inauguration followed by the resignation of the director and several anaesthetists reveals that the problem is more than just hiccups. Another AFR article published the views of Gordon Ballantyne, the head of Healthscope, about the problems facing his company’s newest project. Ballantyne was heard stating that the news regarding poor management of the hospital is just baseless accusations (Afr.com 2018). Mr. Ballantyne stated that the resignation of CEO Deborah Latta was pre-decided. He rubbished news of the bad press the hospital has been receiving since its launch as the reason behind Ms. Latta’s resignation. The tendency of the NBH higher officials and the NSW government to cover or ignore the underlying issues faced by the staff and patients has been visible since its opening (Afr.com, 2018). As The Daily Telegraph published, Gladys Berejiklian, NSW Premier states that despite initial problems, “the hospital is working well and will be a great asset to the community” (Dailytelegraph.com.au, 2018). The statement was made on November 18; just few days after the hospital faced a series of issues that concerned the patients and the staff as well.

The Northern Beaches Hospital, an ambitious $600 million of Healthscope was launched with lot of promises and expectations on October 30, 2018. Healthscope is Australia’s second biggest operator of private hospitals. The NSW government had even funded $2.14 billion to the company to build and operate hospitals. However, the newly opened hospital began facing problems within days after its launch. At first, the CEO who was responsible for providing ideas on the hospital’s design, construction and planning resigned, the reasons for which are still ambiguous. Then, the hospital faced one of its worst nightmares when a caesarean patient was made to suffer due to lack of supplies, equipments and staff (ABC News, 2018). After that, Dr Louise Messara, the medical director also resigned after the senior doctors passed a no-confidence motion against her raising questions at her leadership (Smh.com.au, 2018). Dr. Messara then filed a defamation case against one of the anaesthetists at the hospital (Aubusson, 2018). Alistair Boyce, the director of anaesthetics followed suit and resigned from the post following systemic problems especially during the delivery case of Astrid McCrank (Aubusson, 2018). Amidst all these issues, the Healthscope management failed to come forward and address the issues in clear terms. The bad press further marred the newly opened hospital’s reputation.

Negligence of Hospital Administration at Northern Beaches Hospital

The concerns and issues highlighted and discussed above indicate serious public relations problem faced by the hospital’s operator Healthscope. In all the articles published in the different media sources, not a single article was there that had clear explanation from the the higher officials of Healthscope. Companies that are responsible for running medical or healthcare institutions have to be extra cautious regarding their PR operations. The company in question seemed to have neglected major PR necessities while confronting the media regarding the problems. The attitude of the NSW government, who have a major contribution in the building of the hospital was also questionable and below expectations. The responses were vague and internal problems within the staff further messed up the situation. The main PR issue the company faces is the absence of a person or group that could take full responsibility of the actions and communicate properly to the audiences about what steps the company would take.

It is important to any company that it develops a strong PR team that could communicate properly and clearly to the audiences, the stakeholders in particular (Gill 2015). As visible from the above discussion, the key stakeholders of Healthscope include the entire NBH staff and the patients that come for treatment. One of the important aspects of PR is that the company identifies its key stakeholders and plans according to their needs and requirements (Wang, Hsieh and Sie 2015). Without a proper identification of the main stakeholders, it is impossible to achieve long-term success. As Taylor et al. (2015) identified the factors that affect the frontline staff in medical institutions that include lack in training and encouragement. As the above analysis of the issue explored, most of the staffs at the NBH complained of lack of proper training. Lack of encouragement led to the high number of resignations and complaints lodged by the staff.  

Considering the core issues of the hospital, the following recommendations could be made to help it recover from the situation:

First, Healthscope needs to build a strong PR team with experienced and honest people who are not afraid of speaking the truth. One of the greatest PR strategies is to accept the mistakes in a way that keeps the reputation of the firm intact and conveys the message as well.

Second, the responsible individuals have to come forward and conduct a press conference to explain the problems that have occurred and provide valid reasons. The stakeholders have the right to have all the knowledge about the firm. In the case of NBH, the staff and patients have the right to know about the problems of the hospital. Hence, conducting a meeting with the prime stakeholders prior to conducting a press conference is also crucial.

View of Healthscope head, Gordon Ballantyne, on the problems

Third, the firm should conduct a meeting with the staff that works on the ground, that is, those who handle the equipments and take care of the supplies. The experience shared by Astrid McCrank could be used as the starting point to improve the situation. The authorities should take notes of the patient’s complaints and improve those areas pin pointed by her.

Fourth, the PR team should establish a positive connection with the local media so that they do not publish only the negative stories. Further, the team could also utilize the social media platform to establish a positive reputation. As Boulianne (2015) notes, the immense popularity of the social media that has skyrocketed in the past decade has influenced all spheres of life – political, economic and even social. The firm should use this platform to interact directly with its stakeholders.

Fifth, continuing the fourth point, the firm should focus more on directly interacting with the stakeholders rather than the stakeholders knowing about the firm through other sources. Direct interactions would help the firm in understanding the stakeholders’ issues clearly and the firm would be able to explain its position clearly.

Last, the firm should learn from its mistakes that it did during the hospital’s promotion and advertisement. As visible in the above discussion, focus was given to the beautiful views that the patients would enjoy from the hospital rooms rather than the ground facilities. The PR team should stress on creating content and not advertisements. Strategies like word of mouth should be used where engaging and emotional stories of employees could be shared.

Reference list:

ABC News. 2018. Northern Beaches hospital ‘fails patient safety’ according to leaked email. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-03/northern-beaches-hospital-failing-patients-according-to-doctor/10575622 [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

ABC News. 2018. Northern Beaches hospital ‘fails patient safety’ according to leaked email. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-03/northern-beaches-hospital-failing-patients-according-to-doctor/10575622 [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

ABC News. 2018. ‘Profit before patient care’: 30 doctors sound warning on Northern Beaches Hospital. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-18/northern-beaches-hospital-doctors-speak-out/10508510 [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Abc.net.au 2018. Why this mother is too ‘scared’ to have more children at Sydney’s newest hospital. [online] ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/northern-beaches-hospital-experience-made-mother-scared/10517544 [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

About.abc.net.au 2018. Annual Report – 2018. [online] About.abc.net.au. Available at: https://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/AP18_Vol2_FINAL.pdf [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Afr.com 2018. Healthscope boss Gordon Ballantyne digs in on Northern Beaches woes. [online] Australian Financial Review. Available at: https://www.afr.com/business/health/hospitals-and-gps/healthscope-boss-gordon-ballantyne-digs-in-on-northern-beaches-woes-20181123-h189mp [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Afr.com 2018. Healthscope’s Northern Beaches hospital: teething problems or more?. [online] Australian Financial Review. Available at: https://www.afr.com/business/health/healthscopes-northern-beaches-hospital-teething-problems-or-more-20181121-h185tu [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Afr.com 2018. NSW Health denies push to Northern Beaches Hospital CEO. [online] Australian Financial Review. Available at: https://www.afr.com/business/health/hospitals-and-gps/nsw-health-denies-push-to-northern-beaches-hospital-ceo-20181130-h18jtg [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Aubusson, K. 2018. ‘Hiccups’: concerns played down at Northern Beaches Hospital opening. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hiccups-concerns-played-down-at-northern-beaches-hospital-opening-20181119-p50gz6.html [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Aubusson, K. 2018. Medical director of beleaguered Northern Beaches Hospital Louise Messara moves on. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/medical-director-of-beleaguered-northern-beaches-hospital-louise-messara-moves-on-20181203-p50jyz.html [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Aubusson, K. 2018. No body bags, running out of vital drugs: Sydney’s newest hospital is a ‘shambles’. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/no-body-bags-running-out-of-vital-drugs-sydney-newest-hospital-is-a-shambles-20181116-p50geb.html [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Aubusson, K. 2018. Patient not told of ‘life-threatening’ incident after caesarean at Northern Beaches Hospital. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/patient-not-told-of-life-threatening-incident-after-caesarean-at-northern-beaches-hospital-20181123-p50hze.html [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Aubusson, K. 2018. Raining resignations: New hospital’s woes drag on as anaesthetics director steps down. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/northern-beaches-hospital-nbh-anaesthetics-director-20181206-p50kjp.html [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Boulianne, S., 2015. Social media use and participation: A meta-analysis of current research. Information, Communication & Society, 18(5), pp.524-538.

Dailytelegraph.com.au 2018. RAW: Northern Beaches Hospital passed problems: Premier. [online] Daily Telegraph. Available at: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/raw-northern-beaches-hospital-passed-problems-premier/video/6e820786f911dbf46c053b4849a458df [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Gill, R., 2015. Why the PR strategy of storytelling improves employee engagement and adds value to CSR: An integrated literature review. Public Relations Review, 41(5), pp.662-674.

Roymorgan.com 2018. Australian Newspaper Readership, 12 months to September 2018. [online] Roy Morgan. Available at: https://www.roymorgan.com/industries/media/readership/newspaper-readership [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Smh.com.au 2018. Former medical director considering defamation action against doctor at troubled hospital. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/former-medical-director-considering-defamation-action-against-doctor-at-troubled-hospital-20181204-p50k44.html [Accessed 24 Dec. 2018].

Taylor, J., Coates, E., Brewster, L., Mountain, G., Wessels, B. and Hawley, M.S., 2015. Examining the use of telehealth in community nursing: identifying the factors affecting frontline staff acceptance and telehealth adoption. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(2), pp.326-337.

Wang, S.M., Hsieh, C.H. and Sie, P.R., 2015. A Grey Relation Analysis Of The Performance Of Listed Hospitality Companies In Taiwan. International Journal of Organizational Innovation, 7(3).