Elderly man’s death third in a month amid ambulance crisis

An elderly man who suffered a catastrophic fall in his Queensland home died after an ambulance failed to show up in time despite multiple frantic calls, according to his distraught family.

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An elderly man who suffered a catastrophic fall in his Hervey Bay home has died after an ambulance failed to show up in time to help him despite multiple frantic calls, according to his distraught family.

The man’s death is the third linked to Queensland’s strained ambulance and health system in less than a month, with the tragedy expected to reignite pressure on the state government and Health Minister Shannon Fentiman.

A full review into the incident which occurred on December 2 will be carried out by Queensland Ambulance Service, though a spokeswoman confirmed there were no ambulances ramped at Hervey Bay hospital at the time of the call.

Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service confirmed the Hervey Bay emergency department experienced an “extremely busy weekend”, with data revealing 130 people were transported there by ambulance over three days.

The death comes after Cath Groom, 51, died in early November after an ambulance failed to arrive at her Brisbane home despite multiple calls, and 67-year-old Ipswich man Wayne Irving died in the back of an ambulance waiting for a hospital bed.

In the latest case in Hervey Bay, the man’s wife rang triple-0 late on Saturday afternoon after he suffered a fall and was wedged on his walker.

The elderly woman was unable to help him up herself and rung triple-0 thrice, telling them her husband couldn’t breathe.

It was the man’s second fall at home in as many days, but he had been sent home from hospital on Friday despite being very sore.

Ambulances at Hervey Bay Hospital emergency department

Paramedics arrived at the home 45 minutes after the initial call. The man had died by the time they got there.

It’s understood the initial call was considered a “Code 2” — which can range from requiring an immediate urgent response to paramedics arriving within 60 minutes based on the scale of the injury.

The incident was upgraded to “priority” status after a follow-up call.

A spokeswoman for Wide Bay HHS confirmed Hervey Bay Hospital experienced an “extremely busy weekend” with 371 people presenting to the emergency department between Friday and Sunday — 130 of whom came via ambulance.

The latest QAS performance data shows a total of 162 people per day were transported to hospital across the Wide Bay region by ambulance between July and September.

“We work closely with QAS on different strategies to get ambulances back in the community as soon as possible, especially for urgent cases and we implemented these strategies over the weekend,” she said.

A QAS spokeswoman said local ambulance service managers had met with the man’s family and informed them a review would be conducted with oversight from the organisation’s medical director.

“The Queensland Ambulance Service’s thoughts and condolences go out to the gentleman’s family and friends,” she said.

“Given the above and to respect the privacy of the family, it would be inappropriate to make any further comment at this time.”

Ambulances at Hervey Bay Hospital emergency department

Australian Medical Association Queensland president Maria Boulton urged the federal government needs to step in to ease the pressure on emergency services, which she said had been ongoing for years.

“This is tragic for the family and for the paramedics and healthcare workers involved, all of whom go to work every day to save lives. Accidents and emergencies happen” Dr Boulton said.

“Our hospital EDs have been under pressure and stretched for years due to inability to move patients from ED to inpatient beds.

“We need all levels of government and all sides of politics to work together to resolve our workforce issues, ” she said

“We need the federal government to go back to funding 50 per cent of our public hospitals – that would be an immediate $1.5 billion injection into our health system.”