Austin Hospital in Australia has had a very embarrassing and distressing whoopsie. The hospital has publicly apologised earlier today after mistakenly sending out death notices for 200 of its patients.

Patients, who are very much alive it should be stressed.

The notices were the result of an inadvertent change to the templates the hospital sends to doctors once a patient has been discharged, operator Austin Health said in a statement.

"We apologised unreservedly to affected clinics who, for the most part, were very understanding about the error," it said.

Patient care had not been affected, the company stressed.