A young Aboriginal woman who experienced a violent assault was able to self-discharge from a Ballarat hospital despite suffering severe head injuries, dizziness and vomiting, a truth-telling inquiry has heard.
Gunditjmara woman Sissy Austin, 30, experienced a horrific assault while on an afternoon run in a forest near Ballarat early last year.
Now, details of the former First Peoples’ Assembly member’s traumatising experience in hospital following the assault have been raised during truth-telling hearings, with Victoria’s health minister labelling her treatment “completely and utterly unacceptable”.
After being taken to Ballarat Base Hospital via ambulance following the random attack, Ms Austin described how she was left alone while vomiting and confused due to her head injury.
“I remember just finding different areas of my bed to curl up in so that I wasn’t laying in the vomit.”
She said she began feeling unsafe – like she wasn’t being cared for – and got up to leave.
A staff member insisted she had to sign a form before she could go.
“And I said to her, I can’t even see you like, everything’s spinning,” she said.
After a period of disorientation and confusion, Ms Austin said she ended up on the cold streets of Ballarat at 1am that morning.
Days later she found out the form she had signed was a discharge at your own risk form.
“I had absolutely no idea what I was signing.
“I was only wanting to leave because I was feeling so unsafe and so uncared for,” she said.
Ms Austin wants to understand how she was permitted to leave hospital at 1am – into the care of no-one, in a state of shock and confusion following her traumatic assault.
“Concussion in sport is talked about a lot now,” she said.
“The statistics are devastating around the concussions that women get at the hands of men’s violence, and I just don’t think they’re treated as seriously as what concussions in sport are,” she said.
Victoria’s health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, spoke about Ms Austin’s experience during her evidence at the Yoorrook Justice Commission on Friday, labelling it “devastating”.
Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter said she was shocked at Ms Austin’s treatment.
“For a young Aboriginal woman who’d already been attacked that day — and at 1am she’s out on the street,” she said.
Minister labels hospital experience ‘brutal and dehumanising’
Counsel assisting, Fiona McLeod SC detailed to Yoorrook how medical notes showed Ms Austin had presented with “clear signs of a head injury” including loss of consciousness, headache, light sensitivity, confusion and amnesia.
The Yoorrook Justice Commission is Victoria’s First-People’s led royal commission into the past and ongoing impacts of colonisation.
It is currently examining injustice within Victoria’s health, housing and education systems.
Ms Austin said she has made formal a complaint to Grampians Health, who manage the hospital, and to her local member, Ms Thomas, who has promised to investigate the complaint further.
Ms Austin wants more clarity on whether it is acceptable for patients with head injuries to sign off on their own discharge.
Ms Thomas said it was not and was an example of the “misuse” of the patient’s self-discharge process.
“What Sissy experienced was brutal and dehumanising,” she told Yoorrook on Friday.
“It is completely unacceptable to me.
“It is the true story behind the data that tells us that First People do not feel culturally safe in our health services and with stories and experiences such as Sissy’s, is it any wonder?”
More First People leaving Victorian hospitals against advice in the past year
Data recording when First People leave hospital against medical advice is regularly used as an indirect measure of cultural safety.
Between 2019-20 and 2020-21, Indigenous Australians left hospitals at five times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians, according to The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
In data submitted to Yoorrook, the Victorian health department noted the number of First Nations people leaving against medical advice had increased slightly – from 2.4 to 2.6 per cent of patients between March 2023 and 2024.
Despite her bad hospital experience, Ms Austin said she had experienced other medical care where she did feel safe.
She felt very cared for and supported during her journey in the ambulance following her assault and has a doctor that she trusts.
She was complimentary of the care she received during a second visit to the Ballarat Base Hospital in the days following her assault — after she lost consciousness at home.
Before that visit, her doctor called ahead.
“How sad is it, particularly what’s going on in Ballarat with all the violence to women, that she has to get someone to ring before to make sure it’s safe enough, for an Aboriginal woman to attend who is very unwell,” Commissioner Hunter said.
Ms Austin has now returned to full-time work after suffering post-concussion syndrome which caused headaches and difficulty speaking, reading and writing and left her unable to work for a significant period of time.
No-one has ever been charged over her assault, she said.
A spokesperson from the Department of Health said it was committed to ending disparities in healthcare between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
“For too long our health system has let Aboriginal Victorians down. Many Aboriginal people have simply not felt safe in our hospitals – for this, we apologise.
“We’re working closely with Grampians Health to investigate the care received by Sissy Austin, and thank her for sharing her experience so we can ensure improvements are made.”
Grampians Health and Victoria Police have been contacted for comment.
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