NSW Health Minister Ryan Park has had sleepless nights for months. The senior minister who is considered a future premier says he has been consumed with worry that disgruntled staff at the beleaguered Northern Beaches Hospital would quit their jobs en masse.

At the same time, he has sweated over the impenetrable problem of “bed block” – particularly involving elderly patients who languish for weeks or longer in wards while they wait for an aged care place.

Indeed, the worsening issue is fast galloping away from the minister and there are now 1100 beds across the public health system (the equivalent of two Sydney hospitals) being taken up by people who should have been discharged from hospital. Last year, that number hovered at about 750.

Park, who took on the health portfolio in oppos

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