Kevin Cross had lay bleeding while ramped outside a hospital, was shifted to five different beds in one day, was cared for by an exhausted staff and faced delay upon delay.<\/p>\n
His wife, Jenny Cross, said that was the reality of navigating Western Australia’s struggling public health system with her late husband.<\/p>\n
It was a six-month ordeal of emotional distress as Ms Cross searched for answers to his deteriorating health.<\/p>\n
“Just after Christmas last year he had started to lose a lot of weight for no known reason,” Ms Cross said.<\/p>\n
“He had a bad bleed in March so I took him to the emergency department in Busselton.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Cross says her husband was moved multiple times during a short stay at Bunbury Regional Hospital. (ABC South West WA: Gian De Poloni)<\/p>\n
Mr Cross waited 12 hours to be transferred from Busselton Health Campus to Bunbury Regional Hospital, only to spend another three hours ramped outside.<\/p>\n
Within 24 hours he had been moved between five different beds.<\/p>\n
Ms Cross said there was no communication between the hospitals about a blood transfusion Mr Cross desperately needed.<\/p>\n
“They gave him a CT scan and couldn’t see anything wrong so he was just sent home with a referral for a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The results were nothing, apparently. I tried to book a PET scan he had a referral for but I never heard back.<\/p>\n
“Every time we tried to get something done we just couldn’t. Every test you wanted we had to wait 10 days.”<\/p>\n
Mr Cross was in and out of hospital over the next six months as his condition deteriorated.<\/p>\n
Ms Cross recalled PA announcements in Bunbury Hospital asking for staff to work overtime.<\/p>\n
She also said she had specialists advising them to have tests as outpatients to save time.<\/p>\n
Finally a diagnosis<\/p>\n
In the end, the Cross family “gave up” on the public health system and took Kevin to St John of God Murdoch.<\/p>\n
After 15 days in the hospital he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on July 3.<\/p>\n
By then his organs were failing and his heart was operating at just 10 per cent of its usual strength.<\/p>\n
Mr Cross died two weeks later on July 18, leaving behind his wife, three children and eight grandchildren.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kevin Cross died on July 18 from pancreatic cancer. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)<\/p>\n
Ms Cross said Kevin would be remembered for his warm and friendly nature.<\/p>\n
“Anyone you spoke to would say he was a really nice guy who would do anything to help you if he could,” Ms Cross said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know if an earlier diagnosis would have made any difference in the end, but he could have been a lot more comfortable and had more time.”<\/p>\n
She said she knew the system was bad but did not fully understand until she experienced it with her husband.<\/p>\n
“And its not the staff’s fault. They’re trying their best,” she said.System ‘on its knees’<\/p>\n
Australian Medical Association WA branch president Kyle Hoath said the issues described by Ms Cross, including ramping, bed shuffling and general delays, were apparent across the entire public health system.<\/p>\n