Man dies after being inside ramped ambulance at Flinders for five hours, the sixth death in March linked to crisis

A man died after being stuck inside a ramped ambulance for five hours at Flinders, the union says, the sixth death this month linked to the growing crisis.

Another death is being blamed on ramping – the sixth this month – as the ambulance union continues to highlight problems in the system and Premier Peter Malinauskas says it will “take years” to fix ramping.

The Ambulance Employees Association says a man aged in his 60s died after being ramped at Flinders Medical Centre for five hours on Tuesday afternoon.

The union says the man went into cardiac arrest and died despite efforts by paramedics and hospital emergency staff to resuscitate him.

“Tragically we have seen another death in our ramping crisis,” the union announced on social media.

It says the man was a Covid patient however information given to Triple 0 was that he had been cleared after an earlier diagnosis.

The death came on the same day new Premier Peter Malinauskas confirmed Labor health spokesman Chris Picton – who had relentlessly highlighted ramping as an issue – would be the new health and wellbeing minister.

Tragically, we have seen another death in our ramping crisis. A COVID patient in his 60's went into cardiac arrest after being ramped at FMC for 5 hours yesterday afternoon. Paramedics and hospital staff attempted to resuscitate the patient but sadly the patient passed away.

— Ambulance Employees Association (SA) (@aeasa1981) March 22, 2022

SA Ambulance Service confirmed a male patient was transferred into FMC after a delay on the ramp, suffered a cardiac arrest once in the Emergency Department and was confirmed deceased shortly after.

“While we arrived very quickly, within 15 minutes, to attend this patient and provided exceptional ongoing clinical care, we understand that the patient outcome was, unfortunately, a sad one,” a SAAS statement says.

“SAAS offers sincere condolences to the family of the patient.”

SAAS was unable to provide advice or comment about the circumstances or timing of the transfer.

Mr Malinauskas said his commitment is to reduce ramping over four years down to a level “that ambulances start rolling up on time.”

“Everybody understands this isn’t going to happen overnight, it’s not even going to happen in a week or months – it’s going to take years,” he said.

“We believe that over the course of four years we can see a difference start to be made.”

The death followed another high-pressure night on the health system with major metropolitan hospital emergency departments operating above capacity at various times.

At 9am on Wednesday there were 102 patients who had been treated in metropolitan EDs but were waiting for a bed or suitable accommodation, including 14 who had been waiting for more than 24 hours.

While demand had eased by morning, the logjam had caused long waits to be treated overnight and at 9am there was still a 291-minute average wait to be seen at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

The death is the sixth to be linked to ramping this month by the union, although full investigations are still continuing.

On March 15 the union said there had been two deaths overnight linked to delays in ambulances arriving – the next day it linked another death to delays.

On March 8 it announced two patients had died while waiting for ambulances, prompting an apology from the SA Ambulance Service.

While Marshall silences Ambos two more South Australians have died waiting for an ambulance in the past 48 hours

In an emergency, minutes count.

These patients and their families deserved better. They deserved an ambulance in their time of need. They deserved a chance.

— Ambulance Employees Association (SA) (@aeasa1981) March 7, 2022