Aisha Dow

From marketing and retention to catastrophe and recovery, the life cycle of the scam industry is breathtakingly cruel and strikingly consistent.

A recent Australian study found that noise levels in shared rooms in a large public hospital sometimes surpassed 100 decibels, as loud as a lawnmower.

HSBC is a small player in Australia’s banking sector, but data suggests its customers have been heavily targeted by fraudsters. Those who have lost life savings wish the bank had done more.

Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas has flagged the state is considering amalgamating Victoria’s 76 health services because they are spending money competing against each other.

The failures of Victoria’s emergency call-taking service during the pandemic have been exposed as it emerged other states acted to prepare.

The inquest into the death of Nick Panagiotopoulos, 47, who died after a long wait for an ambulance call-taker, is examining whether enough was done to act on warnings before the tragedy.

Data obtained by The Age shows hundreds of callers in a single month last year had to wait at least one minute before their emergency call was connected. Insiders fear the delays leave people in life-threatening situations exposed.

A new and fast-moving subvariant has triggered the highest number of hospitalisations with coronavirus in more than six months.

Nick Panagiotopoulos, who died following a lengthy delay connecting to Victoria’s triple-zero service, hadn’t yet gone into cardiac arrest the first time he called for an ambulance.

“I want to tell my story because I don’t want anyone going through what I did,” Carlos says.