By MELISSA MEEHAN
DOCTOR Angelo Annunziata started out as a junior resident in 1992 at the Angliss Hospital.
He then spent some time at other hospitals before being offered a job in 2000.
“It is a lot different here to a big hospital,” he said.
“There are familiar faces down the hall and I tell people that all the time.”
In 2005, when the new emergency department opened, Dr Annunziata said it was a big deal for the whole community.
“It’s now big enough to cater for the needs of the community,” he said.
“It’s well-designed and allows us to do good things in term of medicine.”
He is proud of being part of one of the first short-stay units in Victoria too.
“We started one of the first short-stay units in Melbourne,” he said.
“This means people who come in with the need for an intravenous drip, but not necessarily needing to be admitted, we can look after them.”
While only a small hospital, Dr Annunziata said he had seen some interesting, weird and wacky medical cases come through the door.
“We see a few more complex things, and a lot of children,” he said.
“One of the biggest things was a chemical spill at a school down the road in 2004.
“The smell triggered some asthma in some kids, and we had between 50 to 100 come in, we needed to sort through them and find out who needed our assistance.”
He said because of the windy roads of the Dandenongs, the emergency department saw a few motorcycle accidents come through.
But there were a number of people who presented with foreign objects in their bodies.
“It’s the people who make this place,” he said.
“We get many interesting cases, but at the end of the day we all love what we do, and the people you work with make all the difference.”
