Mildura Base Public Hospital is under fire for reporting the same number of complaints and compliments each year in their annual reports. This is the fourth year this has been the case. In 2022, the hospital responded to 247 compliments filed and 239 formal complaints. The 2023, 2024 and even 2025 reports showed similar numbers. This backend debacle has raised fears about the integrity and veracity of the hospital’s data. This data is enormously important because it ultimately feeds into the official reports provided to the Victorian government and state parliament.
Mildura Base Public Hospital is one of the 77 hospitals and health services that are legally obliged to submit annual reports. Their unrelenting data should give everyone pause. For example, the hospital’s annual reports feature an entire page devoted to outlining all positive feedback as well as grievances reported by patients. The lack of correction to these figures for several years in a row points to a big blind spot.
Consistency Raises Concerns
In 2021, Mildura Base Public Hospital published its compliments count. They further released all complaints filed between September 15, 2020 – July 1, 2021. In reality, the report made it clear that the hospital had only received 46 kudos vs 183 official complaints in that same period of time. The data shown for subsequent years looks awfully uniformly constant.
The hospital’s 2023, 2024, and 2025 filings contained identical response rate percentages as those filed in 2022. This troubling trend led to some pointed blowback from local officials and interests. Extended and repeated data Mildura MP Jade Benham was furious with the repeat data.
“Our hospital report needs to be impeccable,” – Jade Benham
Benham stressed that these types of mistakes are unacceptable in a facility that will be meeting the community’s healthcare needs. She said the data doesn’t lie and what it shows is a fundamental mistake by the hospital. This is an ill that requires immediate, redemptive action.
Hospital’s Response
One representative from Mildura Base Public Hospital took the criticism to task. That’s when they learned that all this time, they weren’t the only ones confused—they hadn’t just documented the misinformation and moved on. In response, the representative guaranteed that the 2023 data was in fact accurate, by chance matching the numbers from the previous year’s figures.
“We are currently awaiting guidance on the appropriate steps to rectify the error, after which the correct figures will be published.” – Hospital representative
In response to our inquiries, a hospital spokesperson contended that the breakdown of feedback received, including positive feedback and official complaints, is out of date. This is equally true of the 2024 and 2025 annual reports. This failure led to the erroneous release of these figures, causing an erosion of public confidence in the hospital’s transparency about reporting practices.
Wider Implications
The issue has deeper consequences for transparency and accountability between health services across the whole of Victoria. Only six other hospitals in Victoria chose to publicly list their compliments and complaints statistics in their reports for 2025. This hesitance may be an indicator of further transparency-phobia in our healthcare system.
It’s paying dividends for hospitals such as Beaufort and Skipton Health Service further west in Victoria. In fact, over the last four years, they’ve fielded more compliments than complaints! This stark contrast sheds light on the need for accurate reporting — not just for the sake of public perception, but to enhance patient care.
According to reports, as of November 1, 2025, 19 papers have been amended. This change occurred in the midst of a sitting 60th Victorian Parliament. We have since contacted the Victorian health minister’s office for further comment on this story. So far, they’ve failed to deliver an enforcement statement.
