The devastating cost of delays in Victoria’s stretched healthcare system

One of Victoria’s leading emergency physicians has listed a handful of examples where the state’s stressed healthcare system led to poor patient outcomes, in some cases death.

Neil Mitchell investigated the issue in detail on Monday after harrowing comments from Dr Stephen Parnis on the program.

Dr Mya Cubitt, emergency physician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Victorian Chair of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, said Dr Parnis was sadly on the money with his assessment.

She said she’d heard of a 98-year-old woman being forced to wait two days in an emergency department waiting to access a hospital bed.

In other examples, she said two patients had left emergency, fed-up with how long they’d been forced to wait.

Both of those people died.

“These stories go on and on,” Dr Cubitt said.

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