A coroner has blamed access block in a Victorian hospital for the potentially preventable death of a patient who died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm.

Neville Mills, 66, left the Sunshine Hospital ED in Melbourne’s west without being seen, more than six hours after arriving by ambulance with lower left abdominal pain in July 2021.

Because he did not require parenteral analgesia and had normal vital signs, he was allocated a category 4 triage, meaning he should have been seen within 60 minutes.

By lunchtime the following day, Mr Mills was in considerable pain, so his daughter took him to a second hospital, the Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital, with staff there suspecting he had renal colic.