The NSW health minister has been forced to intervene after empty wards at Campbelltown Hospital, in Sydney's south-west, were offered for hire to TV and movie companies as filming locations.
A recent tender, obtained by the NSW opposition, stated: "Campbelltown Hospital has vacant/unused wards that can be used for filming for TV/Ads/Movies and other similar such mediums."
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the tender was posted by an "innovative" staff member without the knowledge of management within the South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD).
"Apparently one of the staff decided they could use one of the wards that was still being commissioned … to make some money," Mr Hazzard said.
"I don't think that's appropriate but I'm also not going to do what Labor's doing which is bagging staff trying to be innovative.
"The reality is at [Campbelltown Hospital] … they're working under massive pressure this year with Omicron and local staff made some decisions which I don't think were entirely appropriate."
Campbelltown Hospital has recently undergone a $766 million redevelopment and some wards had yet to be commissioned, or were not currently in use, a SWSLHD spokesperson said.
"As part of the redevelopment, some hospital areas are not yet commissioned and older sections are undergoing refurbishment and are presently unsuitable for clinical and/or patient use."
Opposition leader Chris Minns seized on the tender and said the NSW government needed to explain why wards were sitting empty while patients were forced to wait for critical care.
"This is outrageous. This isn't Grey's Anatomy, it's a real hospital with sick people," Mr Minns said.
"It says so much about this premier and this government that they are more interested in creating fictional treatments, than actually treating patients in need."
Hospital wait times blow out
Between April and June this year, just 42.2 per cent of critical emergency treatment started on time in Campbelltown Hospital, according to data from the Bureau of Health Information (BHI).
Over the same period, 10 per cent of patients waited more than an hour and 19 minutes to be transferred from an ambulance to a bed in the hospital.
Ten per cent spent almost 14 hours in the emergency department.
And more than 3,000 patients left the emergency ward without receiving treatment altogether – one in every seven people who turned up for medical help.
Labor health spokesman Ryan Park said "shiny new" hospital wards were useless without enough doctors and nurses to staff them.
Mr Hazzard rejected claims the hospital was understaffed, saying 1,700 staff within NSW Health were currently furloughed due to COVID-19.
Almost 40 per cent of patients who presented to Campbelltown Hospital ED had non-critical conditions that could have been treated by a GP, according to the latest quarterly data from BHI.
According to the data, 5,660 elective surgeries were performed across the health district and nearly all urgent elective surgeries (99.7 per cent) were performed on time.
