Woman waits months for essential surgery until media attention

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A woman who's been waiting months for heart surgery says she feared she may die before she receives the treatment she needs. Bek Batt says she had been given no timeframe for when the surgery would take place until SA Health stepped in this afternoon.

Transcript

00:00An agonising wait.

00:04It's just difficult just sitting in limbo. It really is.

00:08Bec Batt has spent months on SA's elective surgery waitlist,

00:13in need of a pacemaker, an ablation and stents to treat an irregular heartbeat.

00:18I do find that it's limiting in my life.

00:22The 60-year-old from Victor Harbour says she waited 18 months for an appointment to see a specialist.

00:28That happened in January. Since then, more waiting, this time for surgery.

00:34It can cause a stroke and that's my biggest fear.

00:39Hours after Bec went public with her story on radio this morning,

00:43the surgery was booked for next week at Flinders.

00:46I would hope that patients don't feel they need to come to the media

00:49and they are very welcome to feed back to Sarlan.

00:52Despite her concerns, Bec was classed as a Category 2 patient,

00:56meaning her surgery should have happened within three months.

01:00SA Health has apologised but says she wasn't put on the list until April

01:04and was due to be seen earlier this month.

01:07From time to time we do need to cancel and reschedule and that's really unfortunate.

01:11We are at our most busy time of the year.

01:14In the lead-up to the 2022 election,

01:16it was the human faces behind the state's ailing health system

01:20that helped Labor over the line.

01:23Now, with an election looming and yet to deliver on its key health promise

01:27to fix the ramping crisis,

01:29the government will be hoping stories like Bec Batts

01:32don't have the same impact.

01:34Klag硬

01:51Klagel

01:54Klagel

01:56Klagel

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