Health services
Mr WELLS (Rowville) (12:41): This statement condemns the Andrews Labor government’s appalling record of abandoning sick Victorians in the south-eastern suburbs, including Rowville. I have raised two cases of patients who suffered long delays in hospital despite needing urgent treatment. One constituent arrived at Dandenong Hospital by ambulance with a lung infection and waited 23 hours in the emergency department for a bed. He was left for hours on a ward with two patients who were close contacts of a confirmed COVID case. Another constituent, a cancer patient, attended Monash Medical Centre by ambulance with stroke symptoms. He was discharged days later without an MRI. When Adrian’s GP organised an MRI, which identified he had suffered a stroke, Adrian had to wait 5 hours to see a doctor and hours more in a chair and then on a trolley before staff could find him a hospital bed.
While the Premier tries to dodge responsibility and claim that these are unique or isolated cases, hospital stats show patients at south-eastern emergency departments are consistently among the most neglected in the state. Staff are so overwhelmed with patients that only 18 per cent of category 2 patients at Monash Medical Centre, 34 per cent at Dandenong and 20 per cent at Casey hospitals were treated in the recommended time of 10 minutes at the start of this year.