Parents of a baby who died after being treated at a controversial hospital believe their daughter could have been saved with better medical care.

Harper Atkinson suffered complications at birth at Sydney’s Northern Beaches Hospital in February, before her death at a separate facility the following day.

The 488-bed facility is subject to a public-private healthcare partnership, which the NSW government has vowed not to repeat.

It is the same hospital where toddler Joe Massa collapsed and died in September 2024 after his parents waited three hours at the hospital’s emergency department.

Private operator Healthscope has admitted that was an “unacceptable failing”.

Harper’s mother Leah Pitman was sent for an emergency caesarean section but was forced to wait for the on-call team to arrive at the hospital and begin surgery.

“There was blood in my waters and I just remember looking down at the floor and thinking ‘oh, God, is that normal?’ I started getting pain in between contractions,” she told ABC TV.

Northern Beaches does not run a 24-hour theatre on weekend nights, with an on-call team required to attend within half an hour to meet legal and ethical guidelines.

“Why is there no 24/7 theatre at a hospital that serves 350,000 people on the northern beaches?” Leah asked.

“It just seems outrageous.”

Pitman said she was “incredibly angry” she had been forced to wait, rather than receiving immediate treatment that she felt could have saved her daughter.

“I remember asking them … ‘why aren’t we going anywhere?’ They kept explaining, ‘theatre is not ready, theatre is not ready’,” she told ABC News.

“I’m obviously sad every single day she’s not here with us, but [there is] so much anger and frustration knowing that she could be, and that her death, we feel, was completely preventable.”

Pitman gave birth to Harper less than an hour after the call for an emergency C-section.

Harper did not take her first breath for 21 minutes, and her parents turned off life support the next day.

Healthscope would not discuss the specifics of the death as an official review continued, but defended its on-call approach on weekends.

“[It is] in line with NSW health policy; the obstetric cover at NBH also meets the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ guidelines for emergency caesarean sections,” a spokesman said.

“Our clinicians have met with the family to help answer their questions and queries … any recommendations or learnings arising from the review will be implemented as appropriate.”

Healthscope has indicated it would like to return control of Northern Beaches Hospital to public hands amid financial restructuring and moves to outlaw similar partnership models in Australia’s largest health system.

Healthscope, which operates 38 hospitals across the country, remains contracted to run the Northern Beaches Hospital until 2038.

But financial turmoil at the Canadian-controlled firm business has put its future in doubt.

An auditor-general’s report into the hospital’s performance will be released on Thursday, including an assessment of how effectively and efficiently it delivers services.

-AAP