WESTERN NEW SOUTH WALES –

DUBBO BASE HOSPITAL, some 390km west of Sydney, with about 130 beds, is delivering third world care.

A patient suffering extreme pain following hip fracture surgery was denied Panadol because the hospital had run out! The same patient was starved of food for 3 days because no dietician was on duty or the hospital was too mean to pay for a dietician on a long weekend.

Read how Cobar District Hospital denied the same patient medical treatment and discharged him whilst medically unwell.

Yes, folks this is ‘Australian hospital care at work’.

“Sub-optimal” is the word a Coroner described Dubbo Base Hospital. Little has changed.

Dubbo Base Hospital has the highest mortality rate post hip fracture surgery according to Bureau of Health Information report. 91% of their patients over 65 years of age die within 30 days of surgery. This is the reason why they rush to discharge patients so the Coroner doesn’t get wind of it.

Health bureaucrats use the funding excuse when it’s their maladministration which routinely dismisses the needs of country people who are entitled to the same quality of care as city people. Why aren’t they receiving it? Go ask your Member of Parliament.

On top of that, the impudence of Dubbo Base Hospital to charge a deceased pensioner’s bereaved family some $620 for a copy of his medical records is nothing short of loathsome. Perhaps their irregular “fee” can pay for a dietician at the weekend?

Read more of the plight of regional hospitals and health care by Carrie Fellner in today’s The Sydney Morning Herald:

No food or Panadol: anger over ‘third world’ conditions before death