With health expected to be a major issue at the forthcoming State election, the Government has given Dr Neale Fong the job of restructuring the sector. Joe Poprzeczny reports on what is expected from his appointment.
THE State’s new health supremo, Dr Neale Fong, will be spending up to $1.7 billion over the next five years.
That’s $200 million more than the current estimated cost of the Perth-to-Mandurah railway, Western Australia’s biggest single public sector infrastructure project, which includes a tunnel to bisect Perth’s CBD, from the Swan River fore-shore to Wellington Street.
By Christmas 2009 Dr Fong will be required to:
• have delivered a new 600-bed hospital south of the Swan and the merger of Perth’s two biggest hospitals – Royal Perth and Sir Charles Gairdner – into a single mega-medical institution;
• have established specialist centres of excellence for major trauma, neurosurgery and heart, lung and renal transplantation at both hospitals;
• have rebuilt and co-located King Edward Memorial Hospital at one of the new hospitals, expanded Joondalup Health Campus, Swan District Hospital, Armadale-Kelmscott Memorial Hospital and Rockingham-Kwinana District Hospital to 300-bed general hospitals, and increased the range of medical services available;
• have provided a range of general hospital services, including rehabilitation, community care, aged care, mental health services, day surgery ambulatory care, sub-acute care and supported palliative care services at Fremantle, Bentley, Kalamunda and Osborne Park hospitals; and
• have shut-down Woodside Maternity Hospital once an appropriate replacement facility south of the river has been identified.
The list comes directly from the Health Reform Implementation Taskforce, to which the Govern-ment has pledged $1.7 billion.
Dr Fong will have to deliver a major portion of at least one of these big-ticket health sector items from the list each year between now and Christmas 2009.
Work has already started on the amalgamation of administrations of Royal Perth Hospital and Sir Charles Gairdner and plans for the new 600-bed south-of-the-river hospital will be unveiled early in 2005.
The Government disclosed in the upper house to Liberal parlia-mentary health spokesperson Robyn McSweeney that Dr Fong had to deliver something every year.
Health Minister Jim McGinty’s office turned down a request by WA Business News for a copy of the contract.
If Dr Fong meets his annual spending deadlines he’ll be able to claim an additional $53,856 annually on top of his salary of $448,000. Failure to meet each annual deadline would mean foregoing the $1000-a-week top-up to his annual salary.
In another move, Dr Fong has broken with bureaucratic tradition by opting not to base himself within the Health Department’s East Perth headquarters.
Instead, he’s come to a special arrangement with Mr McGinty to locate himself at premises in 1 Alvan Street, Subiaco, four blocks west of Subiaco Oval.
According to answers to parliamentary questions put by Liberal upper house MP Robyn McSweeney, the Governor-in-Council had already approved payment of an annual rent of $175,363 for the Subiaco premises.
Dr Fong’s base salary was set at $408,000 and included a 10 per cent ‘attraction allowance’.
There is also an undisclosed superannuation entitlement.
This puts Dr Fong’s total annual income at well over $500,000 if he meets his five annual health infra-structure projects, or more than $2.5 million over the life of his contract.
Dr Fong was contacted several times by WA Business News but failed to return the calls.
“Unlike senior public servants, Dr Fong’s contract details specific reports, which he is to deliver in every year of that contract,” Mr McGinty said.
“In return for delivering these reforms, Dr Fong’s contract also provides performance-based pay of up to 12 per cent of the fixed remuneration.”
Mrs McSweeney was also told that Mr McGinty’s discussion with Dr Fong included his interest as a partner in the Bali International Medical Centre.
“Apart from his football involvement, Dr Fong has no private business interest,” the upper house answer reads.
Dr Fong is chairman of the WA Football Commission.
“Before taking up his appointment Dr Fong resigned from the position of non-executive director with Australian Health Care Technology Ltd,” Mr McGinty said.
Putting the pieces together
ONE of the key players behind Dr Neale Fong’s forthcoming five-year $1.7 billion spending spree to revamp the State’s health system is a former Collingwood Football Club player.
He is Western Australian-born Jeff Clifton, whose football career included playing full back against Hawthorn’s goal kicking champion, Peter Hudson, recruited by Hawthorn from Tasmania.
Mr Clifton is a partner in the Melbourne-based project manager, Clifton Coney Group.
He spent 14 years with cons-truction giant, Lend Lease, before creating the project man-agement group.
Clifton Coney Group was involved in the $350m Perth Convention Exhibition Centre.
The group is drawing up the blueprint for the various stages of Dr Fong’s health system revamp.
The group has a staff of 120, most of them holding profe-ssional qualifications in various aspects of the building and construction sector.
It is also supervising the $450 million, four-year MCG rede-velopment project.
This year Clifton Coney completed a back-door listing on the Australian Stock Exchange through Farsands Solutions Ltd, formerly Farsands Corporation.
The group has also moved offshore and is currently tackling one of the world’s biggest shopping centres, a 450,000 square metre complex in Dubai, and is looking to expand into New Zealand and to broaden its involvement in the Persian Gulf .
The Clifton Coney Group is also managing a $200 million office development at 50 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.
Its earlier portfolio included Telstra Dome (nee Colonial Stadium), Federation Square and Melbourne’s, and Australia’s, biggest suburban retail complex, the Chadstone Shopping Centre.
The centre has grown so rapidly over the past decade that Chadstone residents have dubbed it the shopping centre “that’s eating up a suburb”.
The other consultancy firm engaged by the State Government to oversee implementation of the $1.7 billion health sector revamp is Fremantle-based Prognosis Consulting Pty Ltd.
According to Australian Securities and Investments Commission records, Ross Keesing is sole director of Prognosis.
