HEALTH minister Lawrence Springborg is urging private patients to stick to private hospitals and steer clear of “the most outstanding hospital of its kind in the country”.

Mr Springborg said there was now real evidence the $1.8 billion Gold Coast University Hospital was luring private patients to the public sector and with “significant” budget increases to the health service, there was nothing left to do but to get the message out.

Patient numbers have soared since the hospital’s opening in September, with demand increasing by as much as 20 per cent in outpatient and emergency department areas.

“The demand increase has been absolutely extraordinary here, and the big challenge for us is we didn’t design a hospital to take people out of the private sector. and I think we’ve now got significant evidence that this is happening,” Mr Springborg said.

“It’s not an easy thing to avoid. I don’t know how you deal with that.”

Touring the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with Mr Springborg yesterday, Premier Campbell Newman said meeting demand was a matter for Gold Coast Health.

But Mr Springborg said with growth greater than anyone envisaged, the service had to work on its management and resourcing strategy.

“Our issue has not been money. We’ve given significant money, but we have to also work with the community to say this is a public hospital,” Mr Springborg he said.

“We understand free, public universal health care, which is taxpayer funded. That’s very, very important.

“We’ve built a hospital here that’s going to stand the test of time for decades to come but we don’t aim (for private patients), and we want to actively discourage people from going away from their other private hospital of choice, but of course, it’s a free country.”

Mr Springborg said Gold Coast Health had received a 40 per cent budget increase during the past two years, more than anywhere in the state, but presentations had been greater than expected in areas such as the NICU.

Six extra cots were added in Aprilafter months of operating with two. It is designed to be a 16-bed unit.

Mr Newman said opening new beds and wards was up to Gold Coast Health.

“We don’t micromanage health any more from some central bureaucracy,” Mr Newman said.

“We’ve empowered local health services to make these sorts of decisions and they will make them to best suit the local community.”

Gold Coast Health board deputy chairman Ken Brown said even patients from northern NSW had added to demand as the hospital became a victim of its own success.

Source: Gold Coast bulletin