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Four Australian babies are dead after their heart surgeries were canceled due to the government’s Covid-19 travel restrictions and cost-cutting by the government-run health care system.
The babies “died after being denied lifesaving heart surgery because it wasn’t available in Adelaide, and they couldn’t be transferred interstate because of travel restrictions,” Australia’s 9News reports.
The equipment needed to perform the surgeries is not available in Adelaide and the procedures were supposed to take place at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
But due to Covid-19 travel restrictions on re-entering the state of South Australia from the state of Victoria, the babies could not leave Adelaide.
The babies died of treatable heart conditions.
The deaths “could have been prevented if the right cardiac treatment had been available, a South Australian Parliament committee has heard,” Australia’s national ABC News reports.
The surgeries could have been performed in Adelaide if the hospital had the equipment, under a proposal presented 18 months ago, but Australia’s government-run system refused to buy the equipment, citing cost.
“We spend $5 million a year transferring patients. It would cost about $6 million to set it up and then $1 million a year to run it,” said professor John Svigos, convenor of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Alliance, told the Select Committee on Health Services Adelaide, decrying the decision and noting the equipment would have paid for itself in two years.
“How many more deaths of babies and young children will staff be forced to endure before the
Minister for Health cuts across this unnecessary procrastination?,” he said.
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Michael Brigham
Michael Brigham has written for American Action News since the summer of 2019. His areas of expertise include foreign affairs, government, and politics, but regardless of the subject matter, he has a nose and an insatiable appetite for news. In his free time, he enjoys reading nonfiction, watching a mix of comedies and true crime documentaries, and spending time away from the swamp hiking in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.
