Veteran broadcaster Derryn Hinch has spoken candidly about his declining health, revealing he has suffered 30 falls in the past year and was left stranded on the floor for 12 hours during his most recent accident.
Appearing on A Current Affair on Monday night, the 81-year-old said the falls have become sudden and unpredictable. “I’ve had 30 falls in the last year. And they just happen, even when I’m holding onto Johnny [his walker]. I sometimes just hit the floor.”
The most recent fall resulted in a three-week hospital stay. “I didn’t know that I had broken two ribs, but the thing was, I was just lying there. I couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t use my arms. I couldn’t crawl to my bedroom to get a blanket. I just felt totally stranded.”
Despite the trauma, Hinch tried to keep his trademark dry humour, pointing to a balcony chair and joking, “This is a great place to cark it. I mean, sitting in that chair, staring out the clouds. Good night nurse. Goodbye, world!”
Hinch has also been battling an infected leg from an earlier fall, adding to a long list of serious health issues. In recent years he has endured facial melanoma requiring radiation, a life-threatening blood infection, an electric shock procedure to correct an irregular heartbeat, and ongoing complications from liver cancer. Fourteen years ago, he received a lifesaving liver transplant.
It’s been a difficult stretch, but he told A Current Affair he is still grateful for the life he has lived. “I’ve had such an incredible life. I never dreamt it, you know. And I hold a seat in history, and it’s pretty good, and health permitting there’s plenty more to come. If I last another month or another ten years, that’s all good by me.”
Reflecting on his five-decade career, Hinch joked: “I used to have a joke about Hinch as a man of his convictions, and I’d say, yeah, I just wish I didn’t have so many.”
Hinch became widely known for naming a convicted child abuser who was working with children—a move that resulted in jail time. He later founded a political party to push for laws protecting vulnerable children, including preventing registered sex offenders from travelling overseas.
Hinch has long acknowledged the heavy toll of his earlier drinking. “It was just stupid. I drank far, far too much,” he told Channel 10. After his transplant, he met the family of the 28-year-old donor. “People criticised me because I still had my occasional glass of wine, white wine with ice in it or frozen grapes. I thought if I have five more years to live I want to live them well and enjoy my life.”
Though frail and recovering, Hinch said he is still looking forward: “Health permitting, there’s plenty more to come.”
Images: A Current Affair
