Ambulance Victoria warned ‘delays likely’ in Melbourne after scorching hot day

Serious concerns have been raised about staff levels at Ambulance Victoria after a surge in demand for helped sparked a triple-0 warning.

Warning issued as demand for ambulances surge. Picture: Stephen Harman

A surge in demand for ambulances in Melbourne on Monday night sparked a warning for people to hold off on calling triple-0 unless it was an emergency.

Ambulance Victoria said delays were likely and people were instead advised to ring the Nurse on Call on 1300 60 60 24.

The emergency alert was sent out on Ambulance Victoria’s social media channels about 8.45pm Monday.

At 12.35am on Tuesday, Ambulance Victoria tweeted services had “returned to normal”.

But it’s led to criticism of the system which struggled after just one hot day.

Ambulance union boss Danny Hill said it was an “incredibly busy” night, which saw the system move to a “code red”.

Mr Hill said up to 130 cases requiring ambulances were pending at one point during the peak of the surge.

We are experiencing extremely high demand for ambulances in the metropolitan region, with likely ambulance delays. If it's not an emergency, please call NURSE ON CALL (1300 60 60 24). More information to come.

— Ambulance Victoria (@AmbulanceVic) December 14, 2020

“It would only have been a handful of circumstances where we have declared code red,” Mr Hill said on 3AW Radio.

“It was incredibly busy. To go to code red is quite bizarre - the level seen under thunderstorm asthma.”

Mr Hill said Melbourne, Bendigo and Ballarat had suffered from the brunt of the increased demand for ambulances and paramedics in recent times.

“People haven’t been seeing their GP, you see that play out with massive amounts of cases,” he said.

“There has been a spike in workload (for paramedics).

“Some of these things might have been preventable.”

An industry source told the Herald Sun a rostering text message was sent asking paramedics to “bring a friend” to work last night, to help deal with the influx of patients.

“Code Red due to workload, any location until 0700, bring a friend,” the text message said.

The source said the code red, which was enacted during the Black Saturday bushfires and the 2016 thunderstorm asthma event, indicated there was a “real problem” within Ambulance Victoria regarding staff levels.

“Clearly they don’t have enough staff,” the source said.

“It is a real problem.”

A rostering text message send to ambos.

Responding to the crisis Health Minister Martin Foley said it came as a “surprise”despite warnings before the budget that there were a lack of the resources, heightened by the impacts of COVID-19.

“The combination of events all coming together last night clearly caught us all by surprise,” Mr Foley said.

“What we want to do is to make sure that we understand the drivers behind last night’s incident and address the causes so it doesn’t happen again.”

The minister spoke with Ambulance Victoria and the union on Tuesday, but was awaiting more information.

In the interim, he called upon Victorians to be responsible for their own health and go to the GP or pharmacy before matters escalated.

“If need be, we might have to look at some public messaging through our nurse on call system, so as to make sure that people take that co-responsibility to look after themselves in a much more ongoing way, so as to perhaps avoid the need for triple zero calls when we’ve had three hot nights in a row.”

Some people have reported not visiting health services because they are told they need to get tested if they have COVID-19 symptoms despite no community cases for 46 days.

However, Mr Foley said messaging around testing would stay the same and vulnerable had access to services that made testing easier.

State opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said there was a “real problem” if 30C temperatures led to a “code red” where patients were left waiting.

“The government has got to ensure we have enough paramedics to meet the needs of the Victorian community,” Ms Crozier said.

“The last few months they were having issues (with ambulances) up in regional Victoria, there has been ramping going on, we even had that pre-COVID.

“If it gets to 30C and we don’t have enough ambulances, there is a real problem.

“They did not have enough people to meet the demand, that is the critical issue they need to address.”

Ambulance Victoria said all critical code 1 jobs, which require lights and sirens, were responded to in a timely manner.

In a statement they said the service had experienced a “high volume of calls for assistance from non-urgent patients”.

“All critically unwell Victorians received timely care,” an Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said.

“However there were longer wait times than usual for patients not suffering a life-threatening illness.

“Many non-urgent patients were provided care over the phone by our experienced nurses and paramedics through our secondary triage service.

“Our priority is to ensure we have adequate resources for Code 1 patients who require a lights and sirens urgent response. These patients are categorised as the sickest Victorians who require urgent lifesaving care.

“This is a timely reminder to all Victorians to stay on top of their health this summer as the weather warms up.”

The city reached a top of 33.7 degrees Celsius at 5.15pm on Monday.

At 9pm, the temperature was 27.9C.