Man dies after four-hour wait for ambulance

When neighbours heard the Surrey Hills man yelling for help from inside his home, they called an ambulance. But 50 crews were “dropped” overnight due to high levels of sick leave and by the time one finally arrived, he was dead.

An elderly man has died after he waited four hours for an ambulance to arrive. Picture: David Crosling

An elderly man has died after he was forced to wait four hours for an ambulance during critical paramedic shortages on Saturday night.

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said the 69-year-old Surrey Hills man could be heard yelling for help from inside his home about 2am after possibly suffering a fall.

His neighbours called for an ambulance, but stretched resourcing meant paramedics did not arrive at his home until about 6am, when the man could no longer be heard calling out.

On Saturday night, 50 ambulance crews were offline, or “dropped”, due to a high number of paramedics being on sick leave, leaving just 90 of the usual 120 crews to work the night shift across Victoria.

More than 50 crews were ‘dropped’ due to a high number of paramedics being on sick leave. Picture: David Crosling

Mr Hill said paramedics working alone and travelling from job to job made up many of the ambulances that were available for call-outs during that time.

“It’s incredibly sad. It’s devastating, obviously for the patient’s family, for the caller and certainly for the paramedics who want to be able to get to these patients in these cases,” Mr Hill said.

“But with resources so stretched, the workload being what it is, it’s just become impossible.

“You can never predict what would have happened had paramedics gotten there sooner, but by all accounts he was calling out, so you expect that the situation may have been much different had we got to the gentleman on time.”

In some areas, there was no intensive care backup available for critical patients.

Mr Hill called for Ambulance Victoria and the state government to explain why last night’s statewide shortage, which left critical patients waiting for more than an hour for help, was not alerted.

Neighbours called an ambulance to tend to the man, but by the time one arrived he had died. Picture: Mark Wilson

A code orange would have alerted crews to the increased demand’s major impact on their normal response times and allowed for extra crews to be called in to help.

“They could have put out a code orange or code red response, which sort of activates some additional resourcing.

“It gives them (crews) the ability to rapidly call in additional crews. It gives them the ability to message the hospitals to say, we’re in a very serious situation.

“The situation last night would have been much worse had it not been for a few dozen paramedics coming in on their days off to fill shifts on overtime.”

In a statement, an Ambulance Victoria spokesperson did not address questions about why Saturday night’s dire staffing shortage was not escalated to a code red or orange.

They said crews were stretched because of seasonal illness in the community and within the ambulance workforce.

“We acknowledge the workload of our paramedics right across the state.

“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.”

The man’s death has been referred to the Coroner as AV undertakes its own review of what unfolded before he died.

“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-0,” the spokesperson said.

Paramedics were so stretched overnight that less than one per cent of crews were available in metropolitan areas.

In one case, the closest ambulance crew to a patient in the CBD was in Cranbourne.

Paramedics travelling from Mornington were the closest available to assist a patient in Dandenong.

Some crews were forced to drive up to 60km to reach patients.

Two-person ambulances were offline across suburbs including Bayswater, Brighton, Sunshine, Doncaster and St Albans.

Intensive care ambulances were unavailable in Caroline Springs, Bentleigh, Ringwood and Preston.

In regional Victoria, Norlane, Morwell, Bendigo and Mildura were among the worst-affected areas.

Ambulance Victoria has been contacted for comment.

Originally published as Man dies after four-hour wait for ambulance