Code orange declared in Melbourne amid surging demand for ambulances

Victoria’s health system is facing more strain with a code orange declared, however Ambulance Victoria won’t say how many times the alert has been issued in the past week.

Victorians are being urged ‘to save triple-O calls for emergencies’. Picture: Getty

Ambulance Victoria was forced to call another code orange in Melbourne overnight, but has refused to say how many times they have issued one this week.

The agency also issued an alert – which they describe as an ‘early caution’ and a normal part of their plan to manage workload surges – on Tuesday night.

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said they and metropolitan hospitals “experienced high demand last night and managed the demand through our agreed escalation processes”.

“We would again remind all community members to save triple-0 for emergencies – this is to ensure the sickest Victorians receive lifesaving care,” she said.

The Herald Sun understands Thursday’s orange escalation was due to high demand and staffing shortages.

The number of staff furloughed due to Covid has more than tripled since the start of October, with about 100 staff currently off work.

Despite repeated questioning from the Herald Sun, Ambulance Victoria would not say how many times they have called a code orange this week.

A code orange is significantly less serious than a code red – which is issued when calls significantly outnumber availability and is far more rare – but does signify increased demand or reduced ambulance availability.

Victorian Ambulance Union general secretary Danny Hill said a code orange allowed Ambulance Victoria to bring in extra crews to help meet demand.

“Healthcare workers are doing their best but with COVID cases in the community increasing, we are seeing healthcare workers suffering illness too with over 1000 furloughed at the moment,” he said.

“Paramedics can’t come to work sick and the unfilled shifts need to be filled, so AV roster additional paramedics to shifts every day.

Additional shifts are normally planned ahead of time but under the emergency response plan, additional paramedics can be brought into fill shifts to cover the busiest timeframes.”

Australia in its fourth wave

Covid hospitalisations have risen by 20 per cent in Victoria in the past week, just days after several epidemiologists warned Australia had entered its fourth Covid wave in time for summer.

Victoria’s weekly Covid data, released on Friday, shows the state recorded more than 22,000 cases this week – an increase of 9.5 per cent.

But hospitalisations have jumped at a higher rate.

The seven-day rolling average for hospital patients was 430, representing a 22.2 per cent week-on-week increase.

Severe disease is much lower however, with a daily average of 15 intensive care patients this week.

Sixty-eight deaths were reported in the past week, while this week’s average daily case rate was 3180.

And the rising case numbers has prompted the Victorian Electoral Commission to set up a drive-through polling booth at a former Bunnings site in Melton West for people who test positive for Covid.

The site, at 149 Barries Rd, is open from 9am to 5pm on Friday, and from 8am to 6pm on election day.

Victorians who cannot get to Melton can call the VEC on 131 832 for other options.

It comes after experts at an Australian Science Media Centre panel warned Australia was in the midst of its fourth Covid wave earlier this week.

Deakin University Associate Professor of epidemiology Hassan Vally said cases had been increasing “significantly” since late October week-on-week, but emphasised we were in a different place than March 2022 with access to “game-changing” vaccines and better knowledge.

“We have effective treatments that we didn’t have back in March 2020, we have access to antivirals that look to be doing a fantastic job in terms of preventing severe disease,” he said.

“The threat the viruses poses, both at an individual level and a population level, is far reduced from where we’ve been at any stage in the pandemic.”

But he said this didn’t mean everything was “rosy” and warned that – despite popular perception – the pandemic was not over.

“The threat that Covid poses to us is not over,” he said.

“We have this issue of waning immunity.

“We never get too confident.

“Every time we think we’ve got a handle of it (Covid), there’s a little bit of a surprise around the corner.

“BA.5 is still the dominant variant but it’s on the decline and we’re seeing that be replaced by other variants.

“These variants all combine to give us what we call this variant soup.”

But he said we could be “reasonably optimistic” that while cases were rising sharply, a sharp decrease would follow.

“This translates to cases being on the decline by the time we get to Christmas,” he said.

“There are lower rates of severe disease associated with this wave.”

Deaths have decreased by 30 per cent compared to last month, but Victoria is still close to reaching a grim milestone as the state records 5993 Covid-related deaths since the pandemic began.

This includes 644 deaths in the past month, with unvaccinated people significantly over-represented.

Data shows 2.1 per cent of Victorians aged 16 years and older have never received a dose of the Covid vaccine.

Despite representing such a small portion of the population, unvaccinated people make up 39 per cent of Covid-related deaths in the past month.

This means some of the 252 unvaccinated people who lost their lives died a preventable death.

Meanwhile, Friday’s chief health officer update warned the vast majority of Victorians are more vulnerable to infection and hospitalisation due to waning immunity as a result of not having had a vaccination in the past four months.

Originally published as Code orange declared in Melbourne amid surging demand for ambulances