"Do patients need to be informed?" The outrageous suggestion tears at the edges of an extraordinary week for the state's health system that saw announced the exposure of three critical medical errors at three separate Sydney hospitals.

Australians are paying five times more than Britons for medical care, causing many people with chronic health conditions to forgo treatment because it's too expensive.

A cancer patient caught up in the latest chemotherapy dosing scandal at a Sydney hospital said a senior hospital staff member told her not to "run to the media".

Complaints against Medibank are escalating at a stunning rate.

A woman giving birth in her 60s might incite shock and awe today. But within 50 years, there's a good chance it will be reasonably common.

More than 80 people have been struck down by a national salmonella outbreak as health authorities warn pregnant women, infants and the elderly to avoid eating rockmelons.

Failures by senior management and a rising number of patients caught up in St Vincent's hospital's chemotherapy dosing scandal has been revealed in a damning report.

In the first large scale study of depression, scientists have pinpointed 15 locations in our DNA that are associated with depression.

NSW health minister Jillian Skinner has copped a fierce barrage of criticism as a cluster of major hospital scandals were laid bare in a single day.

Health Minister Jillian Skinner fronted the media on Tuesday to deliver the interim report into the tragic errors.

Veteran health official Beth Wilson was floored by the response she received when she raised her concerns with a Victorian hospital executive about a doctor accused of sexual assault.

They may be the most common drug in medicine cabinets across the country, but statins have been bumped from the top spot in the latest ranking of Australia's most costly drugs.

An expert report has provided a blueprint for radical reforms to Medicare.

Screening for a serious congenital condition may fail to identify babies at risk of developing poor skills in primary school, a world-first study suggests.

Thousands of Australians have wound up addicted to opioids after being prescribed them to treat chronic pain.

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The federal government can't shy away from tackling Australia's rapidly rising healthcare costs.

A new study finds that the distress experienced by many transgender people comes from the social stigma, not from being transgender.

Specialist fees will be published and consumers will review their quality of care in a new rate-my-doctor website that has angered the medical profession.

A pharmacist's dual role as retailer and healthcare professional had blurred the line between treating people as customers or patients, a review has heard.

There's a good chance this news will make you groan with guilt. But then again, it might also get you moving and prolong your life.

For years the 12-year-old has undergone a battery of tests, but a new lab hopes to find the answer.

A social media craze that swept the world two years ago has helped to fund a medical breakthrough for those living with motor neurone disease.

A woman has died in a mental health inpatient unit on the day news broke that two babies had been given the wrong gas at the same hospital.

Doctors are predicting the eradication of hepatitis C from Australia by 2026.

Expensive robotic prostate surgery, marketed as "ground breaking", "revolutionary" and "nerve sparing", has been found to be no better at preserving men's urinary continence and sexual function.

Jessica Khachan is not the type of person that springs to mind when most Australians think of a drug addict. 

A very small group of very thin people give scientists surprising clues to one of the most important questions about obesity.

The Committee for Economic Development of Australia's annual health outlook lunch is one of Jillian Skinner's favourite events on the calendar.

A Queensland family poised to go through live organ donation has scored a significant insurance victory that it hopes will ease the financial burden on other families in the same traumatic situation.