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‘Broke my heart’: Grieving woman details ‘appalling’ emergency room experience 

Tom Elliott
Article image for ‘Broke my heart’: Grieving woman details ‘appalling’ emergency room experience 

A woman who recently visited the emergency room at Box Hill Hospital with her dying husband has shared a disturbing account of a health system in crisis.

Jan went to the emergency room with her husband Bob, who had terminal lung cancer, when he began to struggle to breathe.

On arrival at the hospital, Bob was left sitting on a gurney for six hours.

Jan says what she saw at the hospital was disturbing.

“I walked through the doors to go outside and people were sitting in the rain under tents outside emergency! I mean, something has to be done,” Jan told Neil Mitchell.

“It broke my heart, it really, really did. And our paramedics, if it hadn’t have been for them I wouldn’t have even had a chair to sit on. We carried around a chair for me to sit on.”

Bob died in palliative care on Sunday, but Jan said she felt she “had to” speak up about her experience.

“I’m just sick of it being ‘Everything is ok’. I mean, my husband has died but I just think of all the other people out there who have to go through this,” she said.

“It was not the staff’s fault. Every cubicle was filled, we were left with the paramedics down the back of the ED, who were looking after something like 12 people, and there were four of them, and the rest of the doctors and nurses are racing around looking after all these other people.

“I felt like I was in a movie set or something. It was terrible.

“How does this happen?”

Press PLAY below to hear Jan’s confronting account

 

 

Tom Elliott
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