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Baird backs embattled minister despite hospital scandals

Calls for Mike Baird (front left) to appoint a new health minister.
 Photo: AAP

Calls for Mike Baird (front left) to appoint a new health minister. Photo: AAP Photo: AAP

A mix-up with the bodies of a stillborn and a miscarried baby in a Sydney hospital has prompted renewed calls from the NSW Opposition for Health Minister Jillian Skinner to be sacked.

During budget estimates, it emerged that the bodies of the babies had been mistakenly identified at Royal North Shore Hospital in St Leonards last year, leading to one of them being cremated when the family wanted the child buried.

It was the third hospital scandal that Ms Skinner has juggled in recent weeks, following a deadly newborn gas mix-up at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital and controversy over chemotherapy under-dosing at several Sydney hospitals.

Another near-miss at the same hospital was revealed during the estimates hearings, where a relative viewing her mother’s body discovered she had been given the wrong toe tag.

Ms Skinner apologised to the families and said it was very rare for something like that to happen.

“Tragic, but rare, fortunately,” Ms Skinner said.

But Labor health spokesman Walt Secord said the situation was unacceptable, given it was the third health scandal in recent weeks.

“Every day a new crisis; we lurch from crisis to crisis in the health system and it is time the Premier removed the health minister.”
Walt Secord

He said it was essential that Ms Skinner was sacked so that public confidence in the health system could be restored.

As the budget estimates hearing opened, NSW Premier Mike Baird said he was backing Ms Skinner.

“Jillian Skinner continues to do a good job in very difficult circumstances,” Mr Baird said.

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