3 days ago
Ben Fordham exposes shocking photos from Blacktown Hospital emergency department
Distressing photos have emerged of elderly patients in excruciating pain, lying on the floor of a hospital waiting room for hours.
Raymond, 70, presented to Blacktown Hospital's emergency department in Sydney 's west on Saturday, experiencing severe diarrhoea and life-threatening haemoglobin levels.
Despite his condition, he spent 24 hours waiting for a bed—much of it trying to sleep on the cold, hard vinyl floor in excruciating pain.
Raymond's daughter, Hayley, shared a photo of him in the heartbreaking predicament with 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham.
She also shared a second photo of another elderly man, 80, sleeping on the floor, covered in a blanket.
The man had already been waiting for a bed for at least 12 hours.
To make matters worse, Raymond was then told by staff that he couldn't sleep on the floor near reception.
'What do you expect a 70-year-old to do?' Hayley told Fordham.
Raymond rang his daughter numerous times during the harrowing ordeal, wanting to discharge himself.
'He said he'd rather go to a small country town, which is where he's from, because the wait times aren't as bad,' she added.
Opposition health spokeswoman Kellie Sloane was saddened to see the latest images from one of the state's busiest and most overstretched hospitals.
'This shouldn't be happening in our hospitals,' she told Fordham on Tuesday.
'I'm terribly sad for this gentleman and his family, decent people who have paid taxes their entire lives.
'And when they're at their most vulnerable, the system has let them down.'
Only 41 per cent of emergency department patients are being treated on time at Blacktown, according to the latest NSW Health data.
It also ranks 20th out of 20 hospitals in the category for treatment of emergency department presentations.
'We need solutions at Blacktown, it's one of the poorest-performing hospitals in the west of Sydney,' Sloane said.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Western Sydney Local Health District for comment.
The new images emerged almost a year after NSW Premier Chris Minns singled out Blacktown as he vowed to address the state's overstretched public hospital system after more photos of patients sleeping on the waiting room floor emerged.
'We'll have to look at Blacktown in particular - there's major stress on our public hospitals,' Minns said last September.
'We want to do better when it comes to health outcomes.'
