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Sydney’s Northern Beaches hospital is officially entering the public system, ending a troubled eight-year public-private partnership, although uncertainty about the future of private services remains.

The transition and legal handover of the hospital from private operator Healthscope to New South Wales Health will occur at 7am on Wednesday. The New South Wales health minister, Ryan Park, said it was a “historic day”.

“It’s been a challenge, but today is the start of a new hospital,” he told Guardian Australia.

The issue of the quality of services was brought into focus after the death of two-year-old Joe Massa in September 2024 after a three-hour wait in the hospital’s emergency department.

His parents, Elouise and Danny Massa, campaigned for the end of the public-private partnership, and were instrumental in the passing of Joe’s Law, which bans all future partnerships being imposed on the state’s acute care hospitals.

Elouise Massa told Guardian Australia Wednesday’s handover was “one of the final pieces of the puzzle for us as Joe’s parents”.

“I want to know that as a parent, as a carer, as an individual, as a patient, that my life can be saved and I have the highest chance of survival if I present to the hospital with an imminently life-threatening condition.

“We’ve achieved a lot, but this definitely is such an important piece.”

The transition has seen more 1,800 Northern Beaches staff – including nurses, midwives and doctors – join NSW Health, with thousands of uniforms ordered and hours of annual, long service and sick leave entitlements transferred over.

Wednesday’s changes will see patients discharged from the private system and readmitted under NSW Health. An operational command centre has been set up at the hospital to support the transition in its first days, but Park said there could be disruptions.

Under the agreement, the entire 494-bed hospital is returning to public ownership, but the government has guaranteed private services will continue to be offered until June 2027. Park says the government has yet to finalise its plans for the future of private care – doctors have warned that without a co-located private facility there would be reduced patient choice.

The premier, Chris Minns, said last week that a decision by the federal government to cut the private healthcare rebate for over 65s would increase strain on the public system, but Park said he was confident private hospital coverage would remain high in the northern beaches, which has one of the highest rates of private insurance in the country.

The public-private partnership at Northern Beaches was put in place by the previous Coalition government in 2013, with the hospital opening in 2018.

Following the revelations about Joe Massa’s death, the Minns government announced a taskforce in April 2025 to investigate the future of the partnership. Additional incidents were revealed, including a woman whose baby died in childbirth because an emergency caesarean was offered too late.

The NSW government had resisted calls to buy the hospital, but was forced into action after Healthscope’s collapse in May 2025. In October, the NSW Treasury announced it had agreed an $190m deal to acquire Northern Beaches’ assets.

Park, who declined to comment on Healthscope’s remaining portfolio of private hospitals, said the takeover was “one of the most difficult pieces of public policy I’ve worked on”. He said the milestone was “highly emotional – because the Massa family has meant a lot to me”.

The Massas, whose campaigning has been critical in the establishment of Raise It, a phone service which allows patients and their families or carers to raise concerns while in hospital, are awaiting the findings of a second inquiry into the hospital, and a coronial inquest into Joe’s death in September.