WESTERN NEW SOUTH WALES –

We have reported to state health departments and ministers for health, for years about sub-optimal care at our regional hospitals. Country people do not receive the same medical and health care as city folk. Why is that?

Dubbo Base Hospital and Cobar District Hospital surfaced on our radar years ago in the error-prone hospitals list. And Cobar is a small hospital.

An investigation by The Sydney Morning Herald has uncovered a string of troubling incidents within the past 12 months, including a death and a series of near-misses, at Cobar and Dubbo hospitals within the Western NSW Local Health District.

They include allegations a man lost most of his bowel after a hospital repeatedly refused to admit him; a patient being told his ward had “run out of Panadol”; and that in a facility that had undergone a multimillion-dollar upgrade, there was no-one who could insert an IV drip.

Read more of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Carrie Fellner’s report:

From a walk at Manly to amputation: hospitals putting lives ‘at risk’