Healthe to close Gold Coast hospital

Private hospital operator Healthe Care will close the Gold Coast Surgical Hospital on Friday after taking over Pulse Health's hospital portfolio.

A specialised surgical hospital on the Gold Coast will shut its doors by the end of the week, resulting in about 60 job losses after a change in ownership.

The Gold Coast Surgical Hospital, opened near Bond University at Varsity Lakes in August 2015, is one of the 13 hospitals private operator Healthe Care picked up when it finalised a $155 million takeover of Pulse Health on Tuesday.

The hospital has a 24-bed surgical ward and markets itself as having five-star accommodation and restaurant style meals, and made a $6 million loss last year.

Healthe Care chief executive Steve Atkins says the hospital, which offered general and specialised procedures, including plastic and reconstructive surgery, was operating in a competitive and saturated market on the Gold Coast.

He said about 90 per cent of the group's due diligence on Pulse in the past five months was spent on the Gold Coast hospital.

"We looked at every conceivable way to try to make that hospital work," Mr Atkins told AAP.

"We were unable to come up with a strategy that was feasible, as was Pulse unable to come up with a strategy in the past."

Mr Atkins said the majority of the hospital's 60 staff, who were informed of the hospital's fate on Monday afternoon, were casual and part-time nurses and administration workers.

He said Healthe Care will try to redeploy staff elsewhere in its hospital network.

Healthe Care, established in Australia 12 years ago, is now the third-largest private hospital operator in the country and is owned by the Chinese Luye Medical group.


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Source: AAP



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