WOMAN DIES IN AN AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC HOSPITAL WHILE NOBODY GIVES A DAMN

(Campbelltown is a low-income area)

A woman who found another woman collapsed in the toilet of a Sydney hospital has told an inquest that nurses had no sense of urgency when she reported the discovery. Susan Bucknell was giving evidence today at the inquest into the death of mother of two Sharon Brophy. Ms Brophy, 34, died while awaiting treatment in the accident and emergency department of Campbelltown Hospital on March 26, 2004. Westmead Coroners Court has been told Ms Brophy spoke to a nurse but was not examined by a doctor at the hospital.

Ms Bucknell, who had taken her daughter to the hospital that day with a broken collarbone, said Ms Brophy ``looked very very sick'' when she returned from triage (casualty) about 1pm. ``She was bending over and she was holding her chest,'' she told the court. ''(She) was leaning over and she looked in pain. She looked quite grey.'' Ms Bucknell, a former registered nurse, said she was surprised Ms Brophy had to wait for treatment while her daughter was seen straight away. ``I would have thought that the other lady needed attention more than my daughter,'' she said. ``At the time, accident and emergency was very quiet, there would only have been two people in the waiting room.''

Ms Bucknell discovered Ms Brophy lying face down in the ladies' toilets about 2.45pm and immediately alerted nurses. ``I was singing out `hurry, hurry there's a lady in the toilet' and they were just looking at me. ``I felt that they thought I was a mad woman because they were just looking at me ... this silly lady running across. ``I felt there wasn't enough urgency in them trying to get the lady. ``There was no action, it just didn't appear to be an emergency situation.''

Ms Bucknell told the court a nurse went to Ms Brophy's aid but ``they weren't doing cardiac compressions, they were just moving her chest around''. The inquest was told Ms Brophy visited a general practitioner at a medical centre on the morning of March 26 complaining of abdominal pain. A post-mortem examination revealed she had probably suffered a heart attack three to four days earlier.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

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