Distressing photos have emerged of elderly patients lying on the floor of a hospital waiting room for hours while in pain.
One patient, 70-year-old Raymond, 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 of the waiting room in excruciating pain.
Raymond’s daughter, Hayley, took a photo of him in the heartbreaking predicament with shared it with 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham.
She also shared a 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 could not sleep on the floor near reception.
‘What do you expect a 70-year-old to do?’ Hayley told Fordham.
Raymond, 70, spent 24 hours waiting for a bed at Blacktown Hospital on Saturday
Another elderly patient was also forced to sleep on the cold, hard floor while waiting for a bed
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.
NSW Opposition health spokeswoman Kellie Sloane was saddened to see the latest images from one of NSW’s 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 last out of 20 hospitals in the treatment of emergency department presentations.
Blacktown Hospital in Sydney’s west is one of the state’s busiest and overstretched hospitals
‘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 indicated little had been done in the ten months since NSW Premier Chris Minns singled out Blacktown as he vowed to address the state’s overstretched public hospital system.
‘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.’
Western Sydney Local Health District chief executive Graeme Loy recently stepped down after seven years in the top job, hours before a scheduled vote of no confidence by doctors at nearby Westmead.
