Wrong baby cremated after dead patients 'mixed up' at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital

NSW health minister Jillian Skinner is embroiled in a new crisis after it was revealed dead patients have been "mixed up" at a Sydney hospital.

The revelation came this afternoon as the minister fronted a budget estimates hearing.

The hearing was told in April this year a woman discovered her dead 89-year-old mother had been wrongly identified at Royal North Shore Hospital.

The woman was wearing incorrect identification tags.

Ms Skinner was asked how she would address the family.

"What would I say? I’m devastated for them, and I’m really sorry such an event occurred," Ms Skinner said.

In another case at the hospital, a stillborn baby and a miscarried baby were mixed up, resulting in the wrong baby being cremated.

Ms Skinner said she wasn’t aware of the mix-ups, and would have ordered an investigation if she had been.

"If it was brought to my attention, I would seek advice from the ministry about what happened in that particular case, whether it was isolated, and what measures have been taken to address it," she said.

Ms Skinner was also questioned over why she left it to the Chief Health Minister Kerry Chant to release a report into the gas mix-up at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital that left one baby dead and another with severe injuries.

Ms Skinner previously said providing support to the bereaved families was "as much" as she could do.

"We’re providing support through the health department, and that’s as much as I can do," she said.

Baby John Ghanem died in July this year when he was accidentally given nitrous gas instead of oxygen.

The hospital’s general manager Chris Leahy was suspended over the mix-up and a medical engineer has been stood down.

The report found "a series of tragic errors" including incorrect installations of gas pipelines, flawed testings and significant clinical and management failures caused the deadly error.

"I wanted the focus to be on the findings of the chief health officer (Dr Chant). This was her report. It's a really important report," Ms Skinner told the hearing.

"Do you think it was a mistake, that you should have fronted up with Dr Chant?" Labor health spokesman Walt Secord asked the minister.

"No I don't. I did it deliberately because I wanted the focus to be on her report, on the findings that would give confidence to the public that the system was safe," Ms Skinner told the committee.

"If I had been there, that would not have been the focus. By not being there, that was the focus. That was what the media was reporting."