Telstra's national network outage on Wednesday had widespread fallout, stalling trains and electronic payments, and preventing emergency calls to Triple Zero. The company conducted over 600 welfare checks on people unable to contact the emergency hotline, with seven needing assistance. Errors with emergency calls persisted into Thursday morning, but by Thursday afternoon, Telstra CFO Michael Ackland assured customers they can “feel confident” calling Triple Zero.
Health Care Relies on Stable Networks
While emergency calls gained the most attention, Australians' health and wellbeing depend on stable network coverage in many other ways. In the post-COVID era, health care includes remote monitoring, telephone calls, videocalls, apps, and internet-based self-management. When Australia's largest telecom provider goes down, it's not just Triple Zero that is lost.
Many people use mobile data to access health information, chat with AI mental health bots, look up conditions, or check symptoms. Medical devices are increasingly internet-dependent, such as wifi-enabled pacemakers or CPAP machines with SIM cards for sleep apnoea. Some diabetes patients use smartphone apps that monitor blood glucose and communicate with insulin pumps. Disruptions in these systems may have occurred but are hard to count.
Double Blow: Loss of Care and Backlogs
Outages preventing phone or data transmission have a twofold effect. First, they prevent people from receiving care, whether scheduled GP video appointments or unscheduled helpline calls. The outage also meant stranded individuals couldn't be contacted with advice. Second, outages create a backlog of services needing rescheduling, delaying care and pressuring clinicians. Disruptions can continue well after the initial issue is resolved.
Measuring the True Impact
The true health care impact is hard to estimate. Australian health services are delivered by diverse public and private providers, from big hospitals to single-clinician services. No single data source tracks missed appointments or surges in care-seeking. If an affected person was a clinician, all their patients could be impacted. The outage is characterized by lack of communication, so we may never know how many people didn't make calls, access appointment links, look up symptoms, or use medical devices.
For example, we hear about Triple Zero calls that don't connect and focus on worst-case scenarios, but less about what happened next. People unable to reach 000 may have attended emergency departments or urgent care in person. Hours-long transport disruptions also prevented some from reaching appointments or collecting medications. Measuring this is challenging.
Planning for Uncertainty
Telecommunication companies warn customers about planned disruptions, but for unplanned outages, Telstra advises using hardwired or satellite internet at home for wifi calling or VoIP. Health-care providers should have contingency plans with such connections. However, these options aren't feasible for everyone, especially since one in ten Australians rely solely on mobile devices for connectivity. They also require digital literacy, which is difficult in emergencies.
Better education for consumers and clinicians about alternative methods during coverage failures is needed. The Australian health-care landscape is a patchwork of in-person and digital services, so preparing for technology failures is essential. If anything positive emerges, it may be greater awareness that planning for uncertainty is a health issue to take seriously.
