Figure-fudging at Shellharbour Hospital has long been resolved because the "virtual ward" dreamed up to cook the books was "decommissioned", the state's health minister says.
The explanation, almost two years after a whistleblower forced an end to the dodgy data, has sparked the ire of an emergency doctor who wants to see hospital staff who manipulate performance figures face criminal charges or the sack.
"How does something that did not exist get decommissioned?" the doctor, Dubbo-based Antony Nocera, said.
Dr Nocera is calling on Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt to apologise to Shellharbour Hospital staff who were treated unfavourably after speaking out against the hospital's "virtual ward" - a paper exercise where patients waiting in the emergency department longer than eight hours were recorded as having been transferred to a ward so the hospital would appear to meet targets.
The region's health service has refused to make public the outcome of an investigation carried out since the "virtual ward" and unfavourable treatment of staff were exposed in the 2008 Special Commission of Inquiry into NSW hospitals.
But the Mercury understands none of those who perpetrated the false records have been disciplined.
Dr Nocera accused health authorities of "basically just ignoring" the figure-fudging, despite it taking up 26 pages of the inquiry's final report.
"I think this highlights the problem with the policing of data within the public health system when something that occupies a whole appendix in (Commissioner Peter) Garling('s) report is just ignored," Dr Nocera said.
"I believe when you perpetrate fraud you should be fired. I don't see why the public service should be immune."
The Garling report detailed how the job of the hospital's head of emergency, Dr Simon Leslie, appeared to vaporise after he exposed the virtual ward at an April 2008 public hearing.
The Mercury understands Dr Leslie has since been reinstated.
In his report, Peter Garling said Southern Hospitals Network general manager Sue Browbank had instructed staff to establish the ward even though she "knew that there would be no change in the way that patients admitted to the 'virtual ward' would be medically treated, and that it was a 'paper exercise"'.
However in a statement to the Mercury this week, a spokeswoman for South Eastern Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service appeared to attribute the suspect data to a misunderstanding.
"Commissio ner Garling made no findings of fraud in his inquiry relating to individual staff members," the spokeswoman said.
"The concept of the virtual ward however was found to create some inconsistencies with interpretations of data requirements. As a result of these findings, the virtual ward at Shellharbour was discontinued."
A NSW Health spokesman told the Mercury the department was "satisfied with the Area's management of the matter".
A spokesman for Ms Tebbutt said past allegations of data fraud in public hospitals had been "rigorously investigated", but maintained the Shellharbour matter was resolved.
"The issue of the virtual ward at Shellharbour Hospital was resolved in April 2008 when it was decommissioned," he said.
"The Government has made it clear that there is no place at all for data fraud."
The spokesman pointed to a 2009 independent review of 11 major hospitals, which found data was inconsistent between the sites, but no evidence of manipulation. Shellharbour was not among the hospitals audited.
Dr Nocera cites the Shellharbour case in a recent Medical Journal of Australia article where he argues against hospital performance data being linked to incentive funding without legislation "making it clear that data corruption is not tolerated".
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