Ambo union says ramping to blame for agonising death

A disabled eastern suburbs man, 54, has died in excruciating pain after waiting more than 10 hours for an ambulance.

South Australia’s ramping crisis has claimed another life, with a disabled Hectorville man, known as Eddie, 54, waiting in agony for more than 10 hours for an ambulance before dying from excruciating abdominal issues.

There were three calls from the man’s Hectorville home on December 27 — he was first listed by a phone operator as the lowest priority category 5, then in the last call went to the top priority category 1 with an ambulance arriving within four minutes.

SA Ambulance Service has commenced a review, SA Health is expanding a review which now finds clinicians and ambulance officers arguing over who gets priority — and no minister of a government which pledged to “fix” ramping was available to comment.

A statement from Lighthouse Disability.who cared for the man to The Advertiser says they are “deeply saddened by the passing of one of our clients.

“With respect, we do not wish to make any further public comment. Thank you for your understanding.”

The Ambulance Employees Association which ran an aggressive election against the previous Liberal government over ramping says there was significant ramping across all metropolitan hospitals with all emergency departments operating above capacity.

“Tragically on that night a 54-year-old male in Hectorville passed away after waiting over 10 hours for an ambulance,” a union statement says.

“The AEA understands that the triple-0 call was for abdominal pain and vomiting and the case was initially triaged as an Urgent Priority 5 requiring an ambulance to attend within 60 minutes. Due to significant ramping, ambulances were stuck at hospitals instead of being available for the community.”

SA Ambulance chief executive Rob Elliott said an ambulance arrived within four minute of the final call.

Citing privacy reasons, he did not disclose any details of the case including if the man had previous abdominal medical problems.
Mr Elliott said there were operational pressures on the night. The incident has been reported to SA Police.

An the inquiry into who should get priority in EDs — people in waiting rooms, people ramped in ambulances, or people dialling for an ambulance — SA Health chief executive Robyn Lawrence stressed staff do not tell clinicians to “offload patients who are of lower acuity.”

Ambulances ramp at the QEH. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dean Martin

The ambulance union’s Mr Josh Karpowicz said long delays in ambulance responses meant “by the time an ambulance arrived for this patient, he had passed away.”

The union’s campaign over ramping previously including daubing ambulances with protests slogans which ceased on the election of Premier Peter Malinauskas’ Labor government with a core pledge to “fix” ramping.

Under Labor’s tenure, ramping has soared to almost triple the hours of the last month of the Marshall government, hitting 4285 hours of ambulances in hospital car parks in November.

It fell to 3595 hours in December.

AEA members say on night the patient died waiting room patients were prioritised into the emergency department over patients in ramped ambulances, “leading to some crews being ramped and unable to respond for over 7 hours and leaving our community at risk.”

This claim comes as an investigation is underway to claims patients with higher priority needs have died in waiting rooms as bureaucrats have “intimidated” clinicians into clearing less urgent ambulance patients first.

Ambulance union industrial officer Mr Karpowicz said: “This tragic death is a stark reminder that when ambulances are ramped at hospitals, patients waiting for help in the community are left without care for unacceptably and dangerously long periods of time.

“Ramping takes ambulances off- road and puts patients at risk of deterioration in an environment where there is no one available to help them.”

The AEA has provided details of the incident to Professor Bill Griggs and Professor Keith McNeil, who are undertaking a clinical review into claims published in The Advertiser that ramped ambulances are being prioritised into hospital EDs over waiting room patients.

He said this death demonstrate “this is not the case”, and that patients in the community are being put at risk due to delayed transfers of care and ambulances not being released from hospital ramps.

SA Salaried Medical Officers Association president Dr David Pope says clinicians are being “intimidated” by SA Health officials into treating lower priority ambulance patients first.

Mr Karpowicz said ambulance response times had improved since the election in 2022 with increased ambulance resourcing, however they have recently started to decline again and will “not improve further until we see a significant reduction in ramping.”

‘If ramping continues at these unacceptably high levels, we will not see improvement in

ambulance response times and patients in the community will be put at risk. We must see

policies and procedures put in place to ensure that ambulances can safely off-load patients to

hospitals so that they’re free to provide care to patients who are often alone and in urgent need of help in the community.”

Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said: “Peter Malinauskas promised to fix ramping but it’s now worse than ever on his watch.

“We support expert clinicians making decisions about how patients are clinically prioritised in our hospitals – with the patient, not political promises, at the centre.”

It follows the death a man, 47, on a Plympton footpath on August 7, 2022, after a 42-minute wait for an ambulance, despite desperate attempts by heroic bystanders to revive him.

Ambulance union officials say the male driver – a father – pulled over suffering chest pains and called for an ambulance, but after 35 minutes he went into cardiac arrest.

They say a bystander commenced CPR and paramedics arrived five minutes later but were unable to resuscitate him.