Ambulance union tells SA Health, ‘enforce your own ramping policy’

The state’s ambulance union says SA Health is not enforcing its own policy to cut hospital ramping rates.

The ambulance union is demanding SA Health enforce its own policy on ramping, saying hospital staff are treating waiting room patients ahead of ramped ambulance arrivals of equal medical priority who are supposed to be given precedence.

Ambulance Employees Association state secretary Leah Watkins said stressed paramedics stuck in car parks comforting patients in pain “feel like they are playing Russian roulette” listening to urgent radio calls and wondering if they will eventually arrive to find the person has died.

SA Health’s policy states that an ambulance patient with the same triage level as a waiting room patient will be considered for placement first if it is clinically appropriate.

SA Health chief executive Dr Robyn Lawrence said: “We rely on our medically trained staff to assess patients and triage them according to their clinical need.”

Ambulance Employees Association state secretary Leah Watkins. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

However Ms Watkins said there had been multiple cases of clinicians treating waiting room patients ahead of ambulance arrivals of equal medical priority, leaving ambulances idling in car parks.

“At Noarlunga Hospital there were people in the waiting room triaged of equal priority to the ambulance arrival but the hospital treated two waiting room patients first and told the ramped crew these people had been waiting longer,” she said.

Ramping is so bad it has reached a point paramedics are hearing “up to 20 priority 1 and 2 calls (lights and sirens) being left unattended” while they are stuck on the ramp, Ms Watkins said.

She slammed the “silo mentality” of some hospital staff who she said appeared more concerned about patients in the waiting room than more serious emergencies in the community.

“It is not theoretical risk, it is a real risk of a pending emergency,” she said

“They need to be aware there are pending emergencies in the community — it’s not theoretical, it is real people.

“We are asking them to consider the risk of actual emergency patients in the community.”

Her call comes as the union says new records were set for ramping on one recent night — different crews were respectively ramped for 12.5, 12, 11 and 9.5 hours.

As ramping rocketed to a record 5539 hours in July, SA Health data also shows ambulance response times show an ominous downward trend.

Priority 1 calls in January 2022 slumped to a dismal 49 per cent of calls seen within the target of eight minutes, improved to 76 per cent by last December but fell to 71 per cent in June.

Priority 2 calls in July 2022 lagged at just 31 per cent of calls seen in the target 16 minutes, rose to 66 per cent in April but dipped to 62.5 per cent in June. July’s response times have not been released.

Dr Lawrence said the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network (SALHN) is reviewing the matters raised by the Ambulance Employees Association at Noarlunga Hospital.

“SALHN supports clinicians to make decisions about which patient to see next based on the Australasian Triage Scale and in line with the Ambulance Transport Policy,” she said.