Latest news with #NBH
Budapest Times
23-06-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Orbán: Hungary is fighting two important battles with Brussels
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Hungary is fighting two important battles with Brussels over government measures freezing interest rates for retail borrowers and mandating caps on markups for a range of food and non-food products. During his regular interview with public radio, PM Orbán said the rate freeze had saved around 300,000 households HUF 55bn, so far. Phasing the measure out would put around one-tenth of those borrowers at risk of bankruptcy, he added. PM Orbán said the rate freeze was necessary until the cost of borrowing fell with a reduction of the base rate by the National Bank of Hungary (NBH). Without the mandatory caps on markups, he said the prices of most of the affected products would rise significantly. He acknowledged retailers' motivation to boost earnings but said some profit was 'unjustified' and, past a certain degree, 'could ruin people'.
Sydney Morning Herald
27-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Healthscope's ills point to unhealthy connection between public patients and private profit
Merging hospital services with for-profit businesses, creating a quasi-capitalistic-socialistic entity, is a complex task. We see this in the financial difficulty facing Healthscope and its 38 hospitals, now under receivership. This stumbling business is causing every Australian government; Commonwealth, state and territory, acute problems. But the NSW government has the extra problem of a failing Healthscope business – the Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) – which is meant to provide public hospital services for Sydney's northern coastal suburbs. The NBH money problems were foreshadowed in the NSW Audit Office report of April 2025. Healthscope, operator of the $500 million for-profit, public hospital, needs to transfer the hospital to the government, well before the contract's 2038 end date. The current NSW government, while opposed to privatised public hospitals, is reluctant. But before exploring this dilemma, a review of private participation in public services sets the background. Beginning in the 1990s, Australian governments were fixated by illusions of savings through privatising traditionally-provided government functions. Some wanted 'to throw the private sector a (profitable) bone or two' as the late NSW premier John Fahey would say. Others wanted to reduce government debt by shedding responsibilities to the private sector. But governments also wondered whether private sector firms were inherently more efficient. The Howard federal governments turned aged care and childcare into profit-seeking industries. They privatised government IT systems, employment services and government buildings and they replaced public servants with thousands of contractors. Led by NSW governments, state governments allowed private toll roads, privately-run prisons, private water desalination plants, public schools built and maintained by private firms, the sale of government occupied buildings; they also authorised for-profit public hospitals. Loading Governments mostly managed this outsourcing incompetently. Taxpayers nearly always paid more, billions more, because of these privatisations. In 1994 the Fahey government, the owner of the newly built Port Macquarie Hospital, authorised Mayne Nickless to operate it as a for-profit public hospital. So troubling and costly was the deal that the responsible minister, Ron Phillips, declared the Coalition would never do another. It was left to the Carr government to pay a reported $35 million in 2004 to buy out the contracts.
The Age
27-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
Healthscope's ills point to unhealthy connection between public patients and private profit
Merging hospital services with for-profit businesses, creating a quasi-capitalistic-socialistic entity, is a complex task. We see this in the financial difficulty facing Healthscope and its 38 hospitals, now under receivership. This stumbling business is causing every Australian government; Commonwealth, state and territory, acute problems. But the NSW government has the extra problem of a failing Healthscope business – the Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) – which is meant to provide public hospital services for Sydney's northern coastal suburbs. The NBH money problems were foreshadowed in the NSW Audit Office report of April 2025. Healthscope, operator of the $500 million for-profit, public hospital, needs to transfer the hospital to the government, well before the contract's 2038 end date. The current NSW government, while opposed to privatised public hospitals, is reluctant. But before exploring this dilemma, a review of private participation in public services sets the background. Beginning in the 1990s, Australian governments were fixated by illusions of savings through privatising traditionally-provided government functions. Some wanted 'to throw the private sector a (profitable) bone or two' as the late NSW premier John Fahey would say. Others wanted to reduce government debt by shedding responsibilities to the private sector. But governments also wondered whether private sector firms were inherently more efficient. The Howard federal governments turned aged care and childcare into profit-seeking industries. They privatised government IT systems, employment services and government buildings and they replaced public servants with thousands of contractors. Led by NSW governments, state governments allowed private toll roads, privately-run prisons, private water desalination plants, public schools built and maintained by private firms, the sale of government occupied buildings; they also authorised for-profit public hospitals. Loading Governments mostly managed this outsourcing incompetently. Taxpayers nearly always paid more, billions more, because of these privatisations. In 1994 the Fahey government, the owner of the newly built Port Macquarie Hospital, authorised Mayne Nickless to operate it as a for-profit public hospital. So troubling and costly was the deal that the responsible minister, Ron Phillips, declared the Coalition would never do another. It was left to the Carr government to pay a reported $35 million in 2004 to buy out the contracts.
Budapest Times
24-04-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Varga: New management of NBH is committed to achieving and maintaining price stability
Governor Mihály Varga said the new management of the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) is committed to achieving and maintaining price stability while improving the efficiency and practical application of the central bank's work. At a meeting of the Big Companies Club of the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BKIK), Varga said the NBH would focus on the tasks in its legal mandate in future, while cooperating with economic and financial market players to support sustainable economic growth. He acknowledged the impact on Hungary's economic outlook of increasing uncertainty on global economic and financial markets amid the drawn-out war in Ukraine, the tariffs war and the stagnation of the German economy, and pointed to the emergence of recession and inflation risks. Although the strong foundations of the Hungarian economy give reason for optimism, Varga said the global tariffs war could affect macroeconomic developments in Hungary, noting that the central bank had put average annual CPI at 4.5pc-5.1pc and GDP growth at 1.9pc-2.9pc for 2025 in a forecast released in March. Varga said the NBH's new management would concentrate on strengthening the fulfillment of its basic tasks, increasing transparency and efficiency, while rationalising other tasks. He highlighted the central bank's recently established cooperation with the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MKIK) and an agreement with lenders on streamlined, more transparent and cheaper fees that would reduce retail banking costs and bring down inflation.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Strain': Troubled hospital's admission
The operator of Sydney's Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) has confirmed it is willing to discuss returning the hospital to NSW Health following the government's ban on private-public partnerships. The hospital faced scrutiny following the death of two-year old Joe Massa, who died after he received care at NBH. His parents took him to the hospital on September 12 after he began vomiting. Elouise and Danny Massa said they were forced to wait for two hours to get a bed and Joe was wrongly triaged into a lower priority despite having a high heart rate and severe loss of fluid. The hospital has come under fire over a range of stories He was transferred to Sydney Children's Hospital in Randwick, where he suffered cardiac arrest about three hours after arriving at the emergency department. He died as a result of brain damage. NBH operates under a public-private partnership agreement between Healthscope and the NSW government until 2038. But last month, Premier Chris Minns announced a ban on all future public-private partnerships at acute hospitals. He has also prevented future governments from entering into partnerships that could limit control over hospital services. Known as Joe's Law, the ban ensures critical public services like acute hospitals remain in public hands and are safeguarded from privatisation. Healthscope chief executive Tino La Spina acknowledged that operating NBH as a public-private partnership was no longer compatible with the government's objectives. Mr La Spina said returning NBH to NSW Health would be best for patients, staff and the community if that was the government's preferred objective. 'As the state's appointed operator, we recognise we must work in alignment with the government's objectives for the health system overall, rather than in conflict with them,' he said. 'The public pressure brought about by the change in policy re. public-private partnership structures has created uncertainty about the NBH future and this has put strain on NBH's people and operations. 'In the current circumstances, we believe NBH will operate more effectively as part of the public hospital system and its future is assured.' However, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said after the way Healthscope had managed this partnership, the healthcare provider should not expect to walk away with a profit. Mr Mookhey noted Healthscope's owners was engaged in a market process potentially seeking to exit the business, but the government would be watching to ensure no one tried to make a windfall gain at the expense of the people of NSW. 'The government will engage with Healthscope management after questions of its ownership and whether it remains a going concern are resolved,' he said. Health Minister Ryan Park said the government's position had been clear that it did not support public-private partnerships being imposed on NSW's acute hospitals. 'We will carefully consider any proposal regarding Northern Beaches Hospital,' he said. 'We can assure the community that Northern Beaches Hospital will continue to operate without interruption during any discussions.'
