The Mater mould and maintenance inquiry is set to recommend today that the hospital's failed public-private partnership (PPP) be terminated.
The inquiry report, to be tabled in NSW Parliament today, follows three hearings that revealed allegations of corruption, cover-ups, falsified records, destroyed documents, intimidation and maintenance failures at the Calvary Mater.
The inquiry is set to recommend that the ownership and management of the Mater be transferred to NSW Health as soon as possible.
The inquiry has exposed deep failures in the PPP between Novacare and NSW Health's Health Administration Corporation (HAC), which closely involves Hunter New England Health.
Inquiry chair Amanda Cohn said "the inquiry has laid bare that the infrastructure issues at the Mater started as soon as it was built".
"Staff have been raising the alarm for nearly a decade," Dr Cohn, the NSW Greens spokesperson for health, said.
"The failure to act was a direct result of the PPP model, which left no one taking responsibility for the maintenance of the hospital.
"The only solution that will fix the infrastructure issues, and restore the trust of staff and the community, is for the ownership and management of the hospital to be brought into public hands."
Dr Cohn said the most shocking issue was "knowing now that all of this could have been prevented".
"Hospital management and the NSW government knew about these problems for years and didn't take action to address them," she said.
The inquiry report is also set to recommend that NSW Health consult staff and unions on the potential voluntary administration of Novacare.
Under the PPP, Novacare subcontracts the hospital's maintenance to American corporate giant Honeywell.
Whistleblower Luke Carroll played a key role in the inquiry.
A former senior project manager for assets and infrastructure with Honeywell at the Mater, Mr Carroll gave explosive evidence at the first hearing in Newcastle in March.
He told the inquiry that the hospital's maintenance program had a "core problem of willful neglect" and that mould testing was "essentially being falsified to produce artificially low results".
Novacare and Honeywell have denied the allegations and blamed the hospital's infrastructure problems on the NSW government.
In fresh comments to the Herald, Mr Carroll said it was "very dark days when I first realised how serious the maintenance issue was in the cancer ward".
"I was shocked and, naively perhaps, thought Honeywell would do the right thing. Instead I was interrogated, confined to my home and ultimately lost my career," he said.
"I knew for those months they kept me and their secret hidden, people were likely to be dying in the cancer ward of the Mater. The weight of that overwhelmed me and I eventually had to act."
Mr Carroll said it was "a very difficult time for me, but on the other side of the ledger, the good side, people helped me to get this story where it belonged".
"I thank XD Law, Bilbie Faraday Harrison, the Newcastle Herald and, ultimately, the parliamentary inquiry," he said.
"It won't help the people who died, but I hope it's some comfort to their families, and the other victims, to finally be told the truth about what happened in that hospital."
Dr Cohn said she was grateful to the whistleblowers for their evidence.
"What the staff and whistleblowers revealed was happening at the Mater shocked me," she said.
"What we heard directly from whistleblowers was heart-wrenching and compelling. The work they have done to bring these serious issues to light, after exhausting all the usual channels, has benefited the community and in some cases come at great professional and personal cost."
She also highlighted the "extraordinary compassion and resilience of the hospital staff".
In June, the Minns government announced a $400 million "maintenance blitz" on the state's hospitals. Health officials have confirmed some of that money will go towards fixing the Mater's ageing and dysfunctional heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system.
As the Herald has reported, documents show the HVAC was a key factor in the hospital's mould contamination, as it lacked humidity control and was not properly maintained.
Patients at the Mater, the Hunter's main cancer hospital, are at high risk from deadly fungal infections from the Aspergillus fumigatus mould detected at the hospital.
The Herald has revealed that at least 16 invasive fungal infections occurred at the Mater from 2019 to 2024.
About 120 families have registered for a class action into alleged mould-related deaths at the Mater, most of whom lost loved ones to pneumonia.
In January and February, the Herald revealed that cancer wards and the ICU were closed due to a mould infestation, along with maggots falling onto patients.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park then announced cladding remediation work on the hospital building to stop water leaking into the hospital at a cost of $12.5 million.
