Chaos as Ambulance Victoria declares code red for Melbourne services

Melbourne’s embattled ambulance services have reached a dire new milestone — entering code red for the second time in one week.

Ambulances in Melbourne have been forced to declare a code red for the second time in a week as services stretched desperately thin across the city.

The warning came after midnight on Tuesday with anyone needing non-emergency care urged to contact Nurse on Call services instead.

“Ambulance Victoria is experiencing an extremely high demand for ambulances in the metropolitan region,” a statement said.

“It is likely there will be a delay in an ambulance reaching you.

Ambulances services in Melbourne have been forced to again declare a code red.

“Our priority is to provide care to Victorians who require life-saving assistance.”

It comes almost a week after the embattled service implemented another code red as Victoria’s daily cases skyrocketed past 10,000.

More than 500 Ambulance Victoria staff were furloughed at the time with SES and Lifesaving Victoria used to help keep up with demand.

The state’s Acting Premier Jacinta Allan also addressed the issue, saying it showed the “unprecedented challenges” the health system faced in the wake of the pandemic.

“Code red circumstances do happen from time to time both as a consequence of the pandemic but indeed other events, either natural disasters or other events that are going on in the community at that given time,” she said.

Acting Premier Jacinta Allan said the code red represented “unprecedented challenges” the health system faces.

“But there’s no doubt that our health system – our community as a whole – is facing some really challenging and, indeed, unprecedented challenges as a consequence of the Omicron virus.”

Ambulance Union acting general secretary Olga Bartasek told 3AW the situation had to be “dire” for a code red to be called.

Ambulance Victoria is experiencing an extremely high demand for ambulances in the metropolitan region. It is likely there will be a delay in an ambulance reaching you. If it’s not an emergency, please call NURSE-ON-CALL (1300 60 60 24). pic.twitter.com/68La4H3wwg

— Ambulance Victoria (@AmbulanceVic) January 10, 2022

However, some staff have been forced to isolate as a result of the surge in cases, prompting non-emergency transport workers having to handle serious matters.

“Certainly, code red is only ever reserved for … things like thunderstorm asthma or the bushfires,” Ms Bartasek said.

There are now 161,065 active Covid cases in Victoria — 818 infected people are in hospital and 118 are in intensive care.

Originally published as Chaos as Ambulance Victoria declares code red for Melbourne services