THE Queensland Nurses Union is calling for an independent investigation into the Wesley Hospital manager who did not disclose a previous legionnaires' disease death at the facility.
The Brisbane hospital is dealing with a deadly outbreak of legionnaires', which killed one patient and put another in intensive care this month.
Its management has previously told reporters there were no past cases.
However, Queensland Health this week told reporters it is now including a 2011 legionnaires' death at the private hospital in its investigation.
UnitingCare Health executive director Richard Royle on Wednesday admitted he knew of the 2011 death; a fortnight ago he denied any knowledge of past cases.
The Queensland Nurses Union's acting secretary, Des Elder, says withholding information and making false statements are serious offences.
"There absolutely has been a cover-up," Mr Elder said.
"I don't think there's any question that the hospital management has tried to conceal that there had in fact been a previous occurrence of legionella previous years ago when they made statements to the press quite openly that there had not been."
He said had the Wesley been a public hospital, Mr Royle would be held accountable for making false statements.
"It would be a breach of the code of conduct in Queensland Health for a CEO to lie," he said.
Mr Elder suggested a public hospital chief executive would face disciplinary action under the same circumstances, but declined to say whether he believed Mr Royle should be sacked.
However, he called for an independent investigation into the false statement and the delay in passing relevant information to Queensland Health.
"For too long the private sector has been treated with kid gloves by both the state and federal governments, and this crosses party political lines," he said.
"There's a reluctance to take strong action to ensure that accountability that everyone requires of a public health system is there in the private health system."
Premier Campbell Newman told reporters earlier on Thursday he was disturbed to hear the 2011 death was never made public.
"I believe the hospital had the duty back then to reveal what went on, but of course Queensland Health had a duty to reveal," he said.
"It's not clear to me why the previous government failed to tell Queenslanders what was going on."
He said private hospitals were required to comply with the same accountability standards as the public sector.
The Wesley withheld information about the 2011 death from media, but it was reported to health authorities at the time.
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