A Ballarat hospital has apologised after an employee told the wrong family that their father had died on Saturday. The granddaughter of the 83-year-old man, who did not want to be identified, said the family had lodged death notices with two newspapers before Ballarat Heath Services — the operator of Ballarat Base Hospital — revealed it had made a mistake, two days later. “We are all still in shock. We were at mum’s celebrating my birthday when we got the news he had passed so it was a very hard day,” she said. “We’d already started the grieving process, my mum was devastated.” Victorian Health Minister Jillian Hennessy said a staff member misheard a patient’s name and contacted the wrong family.
