HEALTH

Victoria’s health system is heading toward a major confrontation, with a quarter of all public hospital beds facing closure amid an escalating industrial dispute that threatens to overshadow the Allan government’s election-year agenda. The Health Workers Union (HWU), representing thousands of essential…

An inquest has heard that a 19-minute delay in attempting to intubate a critically ill teenager at Box Hill Hospital may have cost him his life, with one expert telling the court the missed ten-minute window “really sealed his fate”. Max McKenzie,…

Ambulance Victoria is facing a fresh industrial crisis, with almost 900 corporate and backroom staff preparing to walk off the job after more than six months of stalled wage negotiations with the Allan government. The planned stoppages threaten to disrupt the administrative…

A growing number of Victorian nurses are calling on the Allan government to scrap a controversial hospital directive that requires Indigenous patients to be treated within 30 minutes of arrival, regardless of clinical urgency. The policy, introduced at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital…

A leading Australian physician has unleashed a storm of criticism over a controversial policy at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, which gives Indigenous patients priority treatment in the emergency department — a move described by medical experts as “a breach of core ethical…

Access to legal abortion and contraception remains restricted at some of Victoria’s public hospitals due to religious policies. Despite abortion being legal in the state for more than 15 years, two Catholic-run public hospitals —Mercy for Women and Werribee Mercy— continue to…