Ariadne makes health move

Press, 7 October 1987, Page 41

Ariadne makes health move

NZPA-AAP Brisbane

Bruce Judge’s Ariadne Australia, Ltd, has launched a health care company that will offer everything from 24-hour medical surgeries to private hospital facilities and possibly medical insurance.

Ariadne executive director Geoff Wilson said Healthcorp, Ltd, would “take full commercial and operational advantage of imminent changes in the health care industry.” Queensland will be the major focus of the company’s initial operations. Healthcorp’s major asset to date is a 50 per cent holding in Sullivan Nicolaides, Australia’s major consulting pathologists. It is understood this deal was finalised last week.

Ariadne plans to float Healthcorp in about two years.

Mr Wilson, who has been named chairman of Healthcorp, said he believed health care was set to become “increasingly privatised in this country.”

Peter Hennesey, previ-

ous general manager of Sullivan Nicolaides, has been appointed managing director of the new company.

He will also be responsible for establishing a network of surgeries, and diagnostic and private hospital facilities. According to Mr Hennesey, Healthcorp has already investigated the viability of becoming involved in such medical programmes as in-vitro fertilisation. It had also considered other services, including provision of management services to the health care industry, health insurance in Queensland, and the manufacture and marketing of surgical instruments.

Mr Hennesey said Healthcorp directors were not being over ambitious. They had studied the direction of health care in the United States and planned to be discriminatory in the choice of ventures.

He said Healthcorp also planned to be active in medical research, aiming to establish Queensland as a leader in that field,