He waited four months for a telehealth appointment, then spent the rest of his life waiting for a cardiologist appointment in Townsville.

He waited seven months carefully checking his Cloncurry PO box — but the letter advising of his appointment never arrived.

Mr Barratt’s heart gave up on October 10, while driving home after spending the weekend in Mount Isa visiting his daughter and grandkids.

The 70-year-old came off the road, got him and his dog ‘Sheila’ out of the car, then collapsed.

In a twist of fate, a doctor and nurse were travelling behind him and saw Mr Barratt hit the ground.

They stopped and immediately gave CPR, but Mr Barratt died on the side of the road.

The man who’d spent months waiting to see a doctor spent his last moments watching one rush towards him.

There was even a chopper called, but it quickly turned back after landing.

A coroner’s investigation was launched into the death of Mr Barratt and a pathologist confirmed his cause of death to be thrombosis (blood clots) in his right coronary artery and coronary atherosclerosis (plaque buildup in the arteries).

Cassandra Hosking remembers the last time she saw her father alive.

“He’d helped me get my daughter ready for school. He got the gate for us and I said thank you and see you next time,” Mrs Hosking said.

“We’d had a barbecue with friends that weekend and I remember him shaking hands and saying ‘I’ll see you when I see you’.”

For most of his life, Mr Barratt was known simply as ‘Stumpy’ — a one-handed labourer and much-loved ‘cowboy’ character of Cloncurry.

He’d lost his left hand at 15 to a mincer while working as an apprentice butcher.

‘HE DID MORE WITH ONE HAND THAN OTHERS COULD WITH TWO’

“He did more with one hand than others could do with two,” Mrs Hosking said.

“A lot of people didn’t even know his name was Mervyn. Even his work shirts had ‘Stumpy’ on them.”

Mr Barratt first realised something was wrong on March 19, 2022 when he took a ‘medical turn’ at work.

“He felt faint and fell to the ground,” Mrs Hosking said.

“His co-workers forced him to go to hospital. He wasn’t going to go. He spent that night in hospital and had a few days off, then came back to work.”

For 50 years straight, Mr Barratt has worked at the Department of Main Roads driving heavy machinery and doing labouring jobs.

“His whole life was driving machinery,” Mrs Hosking said.

After a few days at work, he came back for more tests at Cloncurry Hospital — a service with five doctors and 18 nurses at the time, according to the Queensland Health payroll system.

The Cloncurry Multipurpose Health Service told Mr Barratt he was a category 2 patient and needed to be seen by a cardiologist within 90 days.

It is understood Mr Barratt was seen by the Hospital and Health Services multiple times in this period.

After being classified as a category 2 patient, Mr Barratt was given an open-ended medical certificate which forbid him from driving heavy machinery until a cardiologist cleared him.

Mr Barratt was earmarked for a telehealth appointment — and then the waiting began.

“He was lucky to have a lot of sick leave,” Mrs Hosking said.

“Imagine a person without months and months of sick leave getting an open-ended doctor’s note and they can’t work anymore.”

Mrs Hosking said she believes her father’s telehealth appointment happened with a Brisbane health worker in early August.

“I remember because it was right around the Mt Isa rodeo, and I texted him on August 8 asking how it went.”

The difference between March 10 and early August is four months and three weeks — or 143 days.

The telehealth appointment did nothing for Mr Barret, other than informing him he’d have to see a Townsville cardiologist.

TOLD TO WAIT FOR AN APPOINTMENT

He was told to wait for an appointment time.

When Mr Barratt died on the side of the road in early October, he was still waiting to hear about his cardiologist appointment — a full 64 days since his telehealth appointment.

“Because he was on sick leave, he was coming up every Friday to Mt Isa and staying the weekend,” Mrs Hosking said.

“Then he’d leave on Monday morning. He died on a Monday morning, just 45kms out of Mt Isa. He went off the road. The police told us later they have no idea how he managed to stop the vehicle safely.”

The family learned Mr Barratt had veered onto the wrong side of the road, driven along the embankment, went over it, and pulled the car to a stop under a tree.

“We’ve been told he survived and got out of the car. He went everywhere with his dog and he went to check on her in the back and she hopped out with him.”

It was only after checking on Sheila that the man known as Stumpy finally collapsed.

Mr Barratt leaves behind two children and three grandchildren who believe he would be alive today if medical care arrived when he needed it most.

‘HE WAS A BUSHIE, THAT WAS MY DAD’

“He was a bushie, that was my dad. He loved rodeos, his dogs, pig hunting and camping,” Mrs Hosking said.

“He never made a fuss... speaking out isn’t going to help our dad, but other families shouldn’t have to go through this. We’re in Australia, not a third world country.”

A Queensland Health spokesperson said they were saddened to hear about the passing of Mr Barratt and wished to offer their sincere condolences to his family.

Slim Dusty featured heavily at Stumpy’s funeral, kicking off with ‘G’day, G’day’, ‘Looking Forward, Looking Back’, ‘Fire on Gidgee Coal’ and ending with ‘Never Was At All’.

Sheila is an Irish name. It means ‘heaven’.