Traumatised patients have revealed that they would rather die than return to a hospital emergency room in Sydney.
People unfortunate enough to have spent time in the emergency room at Blacktown Hospital in Sydney’s west have said they would rather be sent anywhere else.
Photos have emerged of of patients sprawled out on the waiting room floor, with some forced to wait more than four hours to be treated.
Despite the emergency room being brand new, Blacktown Hospital is still one of the worst hospitals in the state, according to statistics from the Bureau of Health Information which were published on Wednesday.
The latest quarterly data revealed that emergency department attendances were up 9.7 per cent and ambulance attendances rose 11.2 per cent compared to the second quarter of 2024.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park blamed long wait times on some people ‘using emergency departments as a way to try to access primary health care’, which has ‘never been the way our health system in this country has been designed’.
Opposition health spokesperson Kellie Sloane asked Mr Park during Question Time if NSW’s healthcare system had ‘hit rock bottom’, but he insisted that Blacktown was ‘a hospital under unprecedented demand’.
One chronically ill patient, George Evans from Rooty Hill, begged paramedics and doctors to take him to any hospital other than Blacktown when he needed care.
People who have spent time in the emergency room at Blacktown Hospital in Sydney’s west have said they would rather die at home than be sent there
Photos of patients sprawled out on the waiting rom floor show multiple people waiting hours before they are properly treated at the hospital
‘I’m not going to Blacktown emergency department, let me die. I would rather die elsewhere or at home,’ he told 7News.
Mr Evans suffers from chronic heart and lung conditions which require frequent trips to the emergency room and his wife, Kaylene, has been caring for him for 25 years.
‘Blacktown Hospital is in crisis,’ she said.
Dozens of other patients have reportedly lodged complaints against the hospital to the state’s Healthcare Commission.
One patient was filmed reporting her complaints against the hospital, stating: ‘The whole healthcare system needs a kick up the a**e.’
Dozens of patients have reportedly lodged complaints against Blacktown Hospital to the NSW Healthcare Commission
In a separate press conference, Mr Park assured NSW residents that ‘your government hears you’.
He claimed that if it were easier to find a GP in NSW then the problem may be solved.
The minister said that only the federal government, whose jurisdiction primary care falls under, can help the state.
‘It has never been more difficult to find a GP in NSW,’ Mr Park said.
But Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said there was ‘nothing unique’ about NSW.
‘All hospital systems around the country – frankly, all hospital systems around the world right now – are under extraordinary pressure,’ he said.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted the NSW Health Commission and Western Sydney Local Health District for comment.
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