Man found dead after four-hour wait for ambulance

A man was found dead early on Sunday as stretched paramedics arrived four hours after a neighbour first heard him calling for help and phoned triple zero.

The Victorian Ambulance Union said 50 ambulance crews were “dropped” overnight because of high levels of sick leave. That meant only 90 ambulances were operating, instead of the 120 usually working night shifts, causing a shortfall across Victoria, the union said.

Ambulance Victoria has been under strain for months.Credit: Paul Rovere

“It has been years since we’ve seen this sheer volume of crews dropped in one night,” Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said.

“The members rarely get breaks, almost never finish on time, and they are exhausted and burnt out. So, this is the reality we are facing.”

Hill said a 69-year-old man was found dead in Surrey Hills, in Melbourne’s east, on Sunday morning after an ambulance arrived about 6am – about four hours after an initial call.

“It’s very distressing,” a neighbour who called triple zero told Nine News on Sunday.

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

“They told me it would probably be about 40 to 60 minutes waiting time,” they said.

Based on the limited information he had received, Hill said a neighbour who couldn’t access the property themselves had heard the man call out for up to two hours after the initial call to emergency services about 2am.

“Just based on that, it does sound like a faster response may have led to a different outcome, but there’s no guarantee,” Hill said, adding he didn’t know what the patient’s condition had been.

Ambulance Victoria said the case was being reviewed, and as the death would be referred to the coroner, it would not provide details of the case at this time.

Where ambulance crews were “dropped” on Saturday night

• Metropolitan crews: Bayswater, Brighton, Sunshine, Doncaster, Rowville, Mordialloc, Hartwell, North Melbourne, South Melbourne, Windsor, Point Cook, Laverton, Brimbank, Bacchus Marsh, St Albans, Diamond Creek, Montrose, Ringwood, Yarra Junction, Beaconsfield, Berwick, Lyndhurst, Rosebud, Maribyrnong, Maidstone and Oak Park.
• Intensive care crews: MICA13 (Caroline Springs), MICA8 (Ringwood), MICA 10 (Bentleigh), MICA 19 City and MICA 4 (Preston).
• Regional crews: Hamilton, Barwon Heads, Norlane, Warrnambool, Traralgon, Morwell, Warragul, Ballarat (ALS and MICA), Rupanyup, Cobram, Shepparton, Swan Hill, Heathcote, Bendigo, Mildura, Romsey, Kyneton, Inglewood and Rochester.

Source: Victorian Ambulance Union

“Our deepest sympathies are with the patient’s family members at this very sad time. We would like to thank the community members who alerted Triple Zero,” AV said in a statement on Sunday afternoon.

Victoria Police said the man was found inside a Windsor Crescent home just after 6.30am.

“The exact cause of death is yet to be determined but is not being treated as suspicious at this stage,” they said.

Ambulance Victoria said the health system was extremely busy due to seasonal illness circulating around the community and health services workforce.

“We have as many crews on the road as possible and our priority will always be responding to the sickest and most time-critical patients,” it said.

“We use a dynamic operating model that relocates resources as necessary to minimise rostering impacts.”

Earlier on Sunday, the ambulance union said some priority code-one patients had to wait more than an hour for paramedics to become available.

The shortfall was felt particularly in Melbourne, where 30 crews were lost due to sickness. The union said the metropolitan region reportedly dropped to 1 per cent fleet availability at times.

In one instance, Hill said, an ambulance in Cranbourne was the nearest crew available to respond to a triple zero call in Melbourne’s CBD. In another, the union said a crew in Mornington had to respond to a case in Dandenong. Multiple crews calling for intensive care back-up for critically unwell patients were told none were available, the union said.

Hill said about two dozen paramedics stepped in on their night off to cover ambulance gaps.

“Had it not been for them, the situation would have been much more dire,” he said.

Twenty ambulance crews had to be dropped in regional Victoria.

Inadequate resources and support to help paramedics manage their workload meant absenteeism had risen, Hill said.

“They can’t turn out, if they’re burnt out,” he said. “If you don’t support the workforce, then the response to the community suffers.”

The opposition’s health spokeswoman, Georgie Crozier, said the ongoing crisis at Ambulance Victoria had resulted in tragic circumstances.

“Under Labor, there’s been a revolving door of CEOs, dysfunction and chaos within a critical emergency services system that is failing to meet the needs of Victorians,” Crozier said.

“Every second counts in an emergency, and when an ambulance can’t respond for four hours, tragedies like this – and more lives lost – are bound to occur.”

Last month, Ambulance Victoria chief executive Jane Miller resigned after just 18 months in the job following a union vote of no confidence in the troubled emergency service’s leadership, a protracted industrial dispute and concern over paramedics working excessive overtime.

Former emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp has been appointed interim chief executive. Crisp has defended taking a pre-booked seven-week holiday from August 29 hiking through mountains in Corsica, saying Ambulance Victoria would not “live or die by Andrew Crisp being around”.

A government spokesperson said Ambulance Victoria had just faced its busiest quarter on record, responding to more than 102,000 category one cases, a five per cent increase on the same time last year.

“Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the family and friends of the patient during this tragic time.”

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