Grandmother and cancer patient Marita James forced to wait three hours for ambulance on freezing ground with broken bones

SA Ambulance has apologised to an injured cancer patient who had to lie on a freezing footpath with broken bones for almost three hours waiting for an ambulance.

SA Ambulance has apologise to an elderly injured Adelaide cancer patient who was forced to lie on a freezing footpath with broken bones for almost three hours waiting for an ambulance on Saturday afternoon.

Marita James, 77, fell while pruning a tree with her daughter Naomi outside their northern-suburbs home at Andrews Farm.

Her distressed daughter called triple-0 “straight away” at 4.40pm but help failed to arrive until 7.25pm.

The almost three-hour wait compares with the target 16-minute deadline for a priority 2 emergency.

Paramedics initially triaged her as a priority 3 cases – which has a 30-minute target response time – but authorities later upgraded her.

She was rushed to the nearby Lyell McEwin Hospital at Elizabeth Vale, where she was stable on Sunday night.

Her family have been told she’s expected her to stay in hospital for weeks.

Mrs James’ daughter criticised the delays as she lay in serious pain.

“You can’t leave people like this for that amount of time,” she told 7NEWS.

“It was just trying to manage her and keep her warm while we were waiting for the ambulance.

Marita James, who has cancer, broke her hip after falling on a footpath. Her daughter says she had no choice but to lie there in the cold until help arrived. Picture: 7NEWS

“As much we wanted to get her up and just put her in the car and take her, I’m glad that we didn’t because that fracture could have got a lot worse.”

It is the latest example of pressure on the SA ambulance system as authorities grapple with surging ramping and other problems.

The Ambulance Employees Association has reported priority 2 cases waiting up to five hours and eight hours in some priority 3 cases.

Spokeswoman Leah Watkins said she was concerned at the ongoing delays, which were a legacy of the previous government.

“A failure to plan, and manage the health system, leading to such a state where we can’t recruit ambos fast enough to avoid delays we are now seeing,” she said.

Figures show SA Health recorded its worst ambulance response times last month.

Opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn said the public would be “rightly appalled” at this latest case.

Marita James lies injured on the ground, and was forced to wait three hours in the cold for an ambulance. Picture: 7NEWS

“Peter Malinauskas went to the state election with a clear promise that he was going to fix ramping, yet it’s getting worse on his watch,” she said.

Marita James waits for the ambulance, after falling and breaking her hip. Picture: 7NEWS

“The Premier said he’s broken-hearted but he was the one who promised to fix our health system, so where is the fix?”

Mr Malinauskas said his government was employing 350 extra ambulance officers, 99 of whom by July 1 next year.

“Whenever we hear stories about this, it genuinely breaks my heart,” he said. “No one wants to see tragedies like this happen.

“That’s exactly why we’ve got a program ramping up over the next four years with a lot more nurses, a lot more doctors, a lot more beds coming into the system.

“I just wish I could make it happen sooner but it’s going to take years – it’s not going to take a couple of days.”

Health Minister Chris Picton said it was distressing.

“It is distressing to all South Australians to see patients waiting unacceptably long times which is exactly why as a new government we are investing so heavily in ambulances and hospitals,” he said.

“Patients like Mrs James deserve much more timely treatment and that’s why we are now recruiting so many more ambos to help address the crisis we inherited.”

An SA Ambulance spokeswoman apologised for the distress but said it was satisfied at how the case was handled.

“We continue to work on response times so that our crews can get to our patients sooner,” she said.