Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Adjournment

Health system

Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (19:00): (941) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Health. It concerns the situation of an 86-year-old constituent of mine, which has been raised with me by her son Glenn. I will provide the full details to the minister’s office, as I know the minister asks me and all members to do such things as a matter of privacy. I will raise the matter directly with her and ask her to meet with his family to explain the situation which I raise.

This constituent fell over and broke her leg in the shower and managed to crawl out over the next few hours to drag herself from the bathroom to the kitchen to reach her phone and call 000 – with a broken leg. She is 86. An ambulance did respond and managed to pick her up, taking her to the Austin Hospital. She went straight to emergency, where her injury was diagnosed, and was admitted to hospital. From that time, two Sundays ago, Glenn’s mother was left without food or water and was told by staff that she had to fast for her surgery. The surgery was never rostered and was never intended to be rostered, although doctors continually told her she was on a list, ready to be operated on. Glenn’s mother went 48 hours with no more than a cup of water and half a salad sandwich until he went in on Tuesday morning and confronted medical staff. He was told his mother was on the emergency list but that she would not be seen on Tuesday morning and that it might be done Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening. She was finally given food on Tuesday morning. The hospital has told her since that no surgery was in fact planned for Tuesday; she was never listed for surgery on Tuesday. Glenn’s 86-year-old mother was lying in hospital with a broken leg and no date or schedule to operate to fix this broken leg. No plan or timeline to implement treatment at all was put in place. The only plan seemed to be that they keep her, in Glenn’s words, ‘drugged up on painkillers until she either gave up and passed away or infection started to set in, or God knows what else’.

Glenn does not blame the doctors or the nurses. He says there is simply not enough of them to look after patients like his mother. He is, as you can imagine, very upset and very distressed, and the family wants an explanation from the government. As I have said, I am more than happy to provide all details to the office of the Minister of Health to seek a basic explanation. The action I seek for my adjournment tonight is that the minister meets with Glenn’s family to give a detailed explanation as to what happened in the circumstance of his mother, who was finally operated on on the Saturday but who had been left in this dreadful situation, which was not the fault of medical staff but simply a result, as Glenn says, of a shortage of those able to care for her in the system.