Wollongong Hospital barely rated a mention in Tuesday's state budget.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For us, that was a very definitive line in the sand.
It came just hours after the Illawarra Mercury published a damning account of the parlous state of the hospital's emergency department. It was told to reporter Kate McIlwain by a doctor - a doctor who works in the emergency department.
The doctor explained the impossibility of the situation facing all the ED staff: "There's not much else we can do - we can't work harder - and what we are hitting our head against is a hospital that has no more beds. It's a capacity issue - we are beyond capacity."
There could be no clearer a cry for help.
It comes off the back of multiple strikes, heartfelt pleas from paramedics and nurses as well as tales of sheer exhaustion across the board.
"The government keeps exploiting our empathy, because they know we'll feel bad for the other people we're working with and say yes to working double shifts all the time. The rosters are looking horrible," Genevieve Stone from the Wollongong branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association told us.
Now we're asking Mercury readers to metaphorically stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the staff. And just as the hospital's staff have shared their experiences, we need you to share yours.
As Member for Wollongong Paul Scully said: "This is not about a nebulous entity. There are real people at the end of this and their voices need to be heard.
"If people are willing to share their experiences, I, for one, would be happy to take any cases to the minister."
The Mercury also has been in touch with the Member for Heathcote Lee Evans, Member for Keira Ryan Park, Member for Shellharbour Anna Watson, and the suspended Member for Kiama Gareth Ward on the matter.
With your permission, we want your MPs to advocate for you.
And after hearing so many similar tales of frustration and angst - and not just from patients, from health service staff, too - we believe there's strength in numbers.
We want this to be an issues-led, human-faced project - not a whingeathon.
Never before has our hospital been impacted by so many factors - from under-pressure paramedics to the resultant bed block, hospital funding, health workforce shortages and the seemingly time-resistant impact of COVID-19.
Paramedics beyond the Illawarra have seen patients die outside hospitals waiting for emergency department beds or waiting for an ambulance: "It's getting to a point where paramedics are saying it's only time before this happens to one of us," union delegate Tess Oxley said.
