Bendigo Health Emergency Department

What we do

Nearly 60,000 people are seen in our Emergency Department each year. These patients are suffering from serious illness or injury and require timely medical treatment.

We work hard together to ensure all patients receive prompt, high quality care and make every effort to minimise the time spent waiting.

When you arrive

On arrival please go to the triage desk, here you will speak with our staff and receive an initial assessment. From here patients are triaged (sorted) and streamed into high dependency, acute care, ambulatory care and shortstay areas and have the opportunity to be treated by nurse practitioners, mental health workers, care-coordinators and physiotherapists who complement the emergency team of physicians and nurses.

After the triage process you will need to wait to see a doctor. Your wait can be anywhere from a couple of minutes to several hours, this will depend on how unwell you are, how long your tests take to come back and the number of patients who also require treatment at a similar time. Patients who arrive by ambulance are not necessarily seen first.

While in the waiting room, please direct all concerns to the triage desk. If you have been taken through to one of the clinical areas, please direct all concerns to the nurse that has been allocated to care for you.

When you are unwell and are not at your best it is sometimes difficult to fully comprehend what is happening and you may not remember what you have been told. We strongly encourage you to discuss any issues you have with your care with your nurse or doctor to try and put you at ease about your medical condition and the current plan.

If you need to be admitted to the hospital, staff will discuss this with you.

How to access this service

No referral is needed.

What to bring

When you come to Emergency please bring

• Any information from your GP, to assist in determining your health status and urgency category at the time of your arrival
• Medicare card
• Health Care and/or Concession Card (if you have one)
• Adverse drug alert card (if you have one)
• Medicines you need to take while you are here
• List of medicines you are currently taking (or the boxes), including medicines you have bought without a prescription, such as herbal supplements and vitamins
• Relevent x-ray films, scans, ultrasounds or any other test results or reports
• Private health insurance card (if you want to use it)
• Glasses, hearing aid, walking frame

For an overnight (or longer) stay

• Dressing gown and slippers, or comfortable day clothes and shoes
• Personal hygiene items, such as shampoo, shaving cream, shaver, toothpaste and deodorant
• Something to do, like a book, a magazine or an iPad/tablet with headphones