Peta Credlin: Ambulance denial is symptomatic of excusing leaders’ failures
A 91-year-old grandmother's ambulance denial has exposed an extraordinary new reality in Victoria's healthcare system where critical patients are taking Ubers to hospital, writes Peta Credlin.
What sort of country have we become when a 91-year-old grandmother with a broken pelvis and a bleed on the brain is told she doesn’t warrant an ambulance to get to the hospital?
This is what happened to Victorian Lois Casboult last week – and it’s not an isolated experience.
Recently, a close friend was in Melbourne for a concert, but mid-afternoon, before the event, her sore throat had worsened to the point she had a high temperature and difficulty breathing. Arriving at a major hospital emergency department, she was admitted, seen by a doctor and confirmed to be in respiratory distress with a nasty abscess at risk of closing over her windpipe.
My friend is a nurse, so imagine her surprise when after being doped up with steroids to keep her airways open, she was told there was no throat specialist on duty, so she would be moved to another hospital that night.
And yet, rather than an ambulance, she was shunted there – unescorted – in an Uber.
“I thought this only happened to us in the country,” she said after a week-long hospital stay and emergency throat surgery.
When questioned about Mrs Casboult, Premier Jacinta Allan defended the decision to deny her an ambulance, saying she was confident she’d “received excellent quality care”.
Rightly, the Premier has been condemned for washing her hands of yet another health failure by her government. As with the crime crisis, this is a woman who never takes any responsibility for what happens on her watch.
But what does it say about voters that most of us shrug our shoulders and say, “that’s terrible, but we’re not surprised”.
If we don’t demand better from our leaders, we won’t get it because excusing failure just means more of it.
THUMBS UP
NZ government – for this week banning the use of puberty blockers in children, as has UK and many others countries. Why not Australia then?
THUMBS DOWN
Albanese government – for granting $27m to an Islamic organisation via a “closed non-competitive” process despite its top cleric declaring “jihad against the Zionist entity” was a “binding duty”.
More Coverage
Originally published as Peta Credlin: Ambulance denial is symptomatic of excusing leaders’ failures
