Ambulance response times to critical emergencies worst since Daniel Andrews came into power
Daniel Andrews says Covid has done damage to ambulance response times, after it was revealed callout times are worse now than when he came to office.
Victoria
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Daniel Andrews insists ambulance demand is not as significant as it has been in previous months after it was revealed response times for critical emergencies are worse now than when he came to office in 2014.
Despite making repairing response times a major plank of Labor’s 2014 campaign, one month out from November’s election the average response time has blown out by more than two minutes.
On Tuesday, Mr Andrews said there was still pressure plaguing the healthcare sector, but again blamed the pandemic for contributing to the worsening response times.
Mr Andrews said the next available ambulance response data would be formally reported in the “normal way”.
“Covid has done damage. Our job is to repair that and our paramedics have our full support to do that,” he said.
“We’re going to see consistent improvement. We’ll get back to the very best ambulance response times and we won’t even settle for that.
“We’ll keep on delivering better care to more patients.”
Latest figures show just 64 per cent of critical code 1 jobs across Victoria are being attended within the 15-minute target, compared with 73 per cent in December 2014.
Ambulance Victoria sources say that figure dipped lower last week, and in regional areas was as low as 56 per cent.
It means that while it was taking paramedics on average 13.4 minutes to attend code 1 jobs in 2014, it is now taking an average of 15.5 minutes.
A Herald Sun analysis shows that despite response times reaching a record 83.9 per cent before the pandemic, right now 60 of 79 local government areas are reporting worse times than in 2014.
And not a single LGA is meeting the benchmark of 90 per cent of code 1 incidents responded to within 15 minutes.
In some areas, such as Loddon and Mansfield, response times are greater than 22 minutes. In Buloke, in the state’s west, paramedics are taking on average 30 minutes to arrive at critical incidents.
Paramedic response times dominated the 2014 election campaign, with Mr Andrews vowing to repair the system.
“Our ambulance system is broken, our ambulance system is crumbling, and patients are dying because of it,” he said then.
Last week the Herald Sun revealed the tragic case of Danny Vasiljevic who died after phoning for an ambulance complaining of chest pains and difficulty breathing. It took an ambulance an estimated 22 minutes to arrive, seven minutes outside target.
A damning review into triple-0 revealed 33 Victorians had died after call-taking and ambulance delays.
The Inspector General for Emergency Management review blamed the devastating impact of the pandemic, record call numbers and longstanding funding issues.
In 2018-19, Ambulance Victoria recorded its best ever response performance of 84 per cent of code 1 cases responded to within 15 minutes.
Ambulance Victoria chief executive Tony Walker said response times had been affected by soaring demand, the Omicron variant, sicker patients who had deferred care, and staff furloughing.
He said paramedics were called to a record 97,928 code 1 cases from April to June this year – 16 per cent more than at the same time last year.
“The Covid-19 pandemic continues to put unprecedented pressure on health systems across the country and demand remains at high levels with paramedics attending up to 2000 emergency cases a day,” Mr Walker said.
Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said: “Labor has already hired more than 2000 paramedics since 2014, but there’s more to do, and our $12bn pandemic repair plan will put more paramedics on the road to get every Victorian the care they need quickly.”
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said: “Victoria’s ambulance response times are worse than ever and tragically costing too many Victorians their lives.”
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