A major Melbourne hospital is under fire for giving aboriginal patients fast-tracked urgent care over all others at its emergency department.
St Vincent’s Hospital requires all indigenous patients to be treated within 30 minutes of arrival under a policy introduced last year that is raising concerns about public confidence in the health system and Victoria’s controversial treaty with aboriginals.
The hospital has been nominated for a Victorian Public Healthcare Award because “first nations (sic) patients are now seen more promptly than non-indigenous patients” but critics have called the policy discriminatory and divisive, the Herald Sun reported.
Under the policy, all aboriginals who present at St Vincent’s ED are assigned as category three triage (urgent) at minimum, meaning they must be seen within half an hour and are prioritised over some non-indigenous patients classified as category four (semi-urgent), and category five (non-urgent).
According to the Victorian Agency for Health Information, of the 17,000 category four and five patients seen last year, just 65% and 89% respectively were seen within the recommended time.
Opposition health spokesman Georgie Crozier said the policy showed what Premier Jacinta Allan’s treaty – which will create a parallel indigenous parliament and inject far-left anti-Australian ideology into the education system – would look like.
“The triaging of patients should be done on medical need, not based on the colour of your skin,” she said.
“This sort of discrimination will only divide our society.”
But a hospital spokesperson said the policy had resulted in “comparable” wait times for indigenous and non-indigenous patients, and had “no negative impact on overall ED access and patient flow”.
“Research conducted in St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne’s (SVHM) ED showed first nations patients were, on average, waiting longer to be seen compared to non-Indigenous patients,” she said.
“The research also showed first nations patients were more likely to remain engaged with care if seen within their first hour of ED presentation.”
A spokesperson for Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas also defended the hospital, saying it had done “remarkable work to close the gap in category three wait times” and that the difference between wait times between indigenous and non-indigenous patients was down to four minutes.
A poll conducted by the Herald Sun showed that at the time of writing 95% of respondents disagreed with the policy.
A similar policy in Western Australia allows aboriginal children to avoid wait-lists and get free ear grommet surgery.
Header image: St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne (SVHM).
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