Alex Braes In the small hours of a Wednesday in an outback town, a teenager struggled to sleep. Eighteen-year-old Alex Braes’ knee was so painful, he asked his father to take him to Broken Hill Hospital. The timeline of what happened next is a harrowing account of failure in Australia’s regional hospitals, where resources are stretched and staff are under constant pressure. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare figures released in July show the further Australians live from capital cities, the higher the rate of potentially avoidable deaths. According to these figures, for every 100,000 people, there are 91.6 avoidable deaths in major cities, compared to 248.7 avoidable deaths in very remote parts of the country. These figures meant the odds were against Alex Braes from the start. But so shocking is his case that it’s prompted a group of clinicians who worked at Broken Hill Hospital to blow […]