Ambulances waiting times worst in six years

A blowout in ambulance response times and a perfect storm of conditions has our health system in crisis, with predictions it will get even worse.

Ambulance Victoria is due to announce its wait times, which are expected to be among its highest in years. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Ian Currie

Victoria’s health system is under siege as ambulance services recorded some of their worst ever response time results.

And there are dire warnings the situation will get even more bleak when the winter flu season hits.

A perfect storm of COVID-19 complications, sicker than normal patients, people unwilling or unable to visit the GP and fatigued medical staff unable to work long hours has crippled

the state’s health system.

Performance data released Friday show only 75.1 per cent of code 1 ambulances responding to critically ill patients within the 15 minute benchmark.

It’s the worst result in six years, with those running the system conceding it is likely to drop even further.

The result has been largely blamed on huge delays in offloading patients from an ambulance into overstretched hospital emergency departments.

Ambulance response times are that their lowest level since 2015. Picture: Stephen Harman

On Thursday night more than 20 ambulances were stranded outside Royal Melbourne Hospital as paramedics struggled to check patients into the emergency department.

The queue stretched onto the street with ambulances forced to wait, forcing them offline and unable to respond to triple-0 calls.

In an effort to overcome a looming statewide crisis, the state government has unveiled a mammoth $759m funding boost set to provide some relief to Victoria’s besieged healthcare system prepares for a horror winter.

The state government package, as part of the Victorian Budget 2021/22, will deliver:

$266m will support Ambulance Victoria with things like additional triage nurses, an expansion to secondary triage services and non-emergency patient transfers. This will help deliver new paramedics and support staff.

$204.3m to bolster Ambulance Victoria’s resources through programs like TeleHealth

$89m to boost capacity and drive improvements through emergency departments

$200m to commission the opening of hospital facilities including additional beds and staffing

A huge increase in the most critical patients is one the reasons being pointed to for the toll.

In the three months leading up to March 2021, the need for code one ambulance dispatches jumped 5 per cent in Melbourne and 9.3 per cent in regional Victoria.

The most critical patients require many more resources and longer periods of attention from paramedics.

However, the ambulance delays are only the most visible symptom of issues plaguing the wider Victorian health system.

More than 20 ambulances were ramped outside the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Thursday night.

In the past three months, the number of emergency department attendances soared 5.8 per cent on the previous quarter.

The Royal Children’s Hospital was hit the hardest, recording a 31.5 per cent surge in emergency cases. Casey Hospital (19.9 per cent) and the Echuca regional hospital (16.9 per cent) have also been inundated.

Hospital sources claim that patients are now sicker and requiring longer stays in hospitals then before the pandemic – making it more difficult to admit patients from emergency departments which also frozen to ambulance arrivals.

Speaking about the ramping issue at the Royal Melbourne, Victorian Ambulance Union General Secretary Danny Hill said there was so many vehicles in the holding bay “they were parked out into the street”.

“So it was incredibly busy,” he said.

“This was around the time of the truck accident with the truck hitting the pedestrians, in response to that I’m told,” he said.

“They would have had to transport them to Royal Melbourne Hospital being the major trauma centre.

“The crews would have transported many, if not all to Royal Melbourne Hospital or The Alfred, so of course they probably needed to park in the street if no ambulances parks were available in the ambulances bay.”

But he said this wasn’t an excuse and five patients shouldn’t overwhelm the system.

“Even without that incident … even if you have five involved (in a road accident) there was still 15 hypothetically,” he said.

“That’s just massive and you know the system can't cope with that amount of patients turning up in an ambulance.”

He said he hopes today’s response times will lead to the action he and the union have been calling for.

“Investment in ambulances and emergency departments is critical,” he said.

“We can’t really protect the community if we don’t have the Emergency Departments working well.”

Health Minister Martin Foley said the pandemic and Melbourne’s lengthy lockdown had a lasting impact on the health system.

“States are seeing more emergency department presentations, more ambulance call outs and less people seeing their GPs,” he said.

“With more paramedics, more beds and new types of triage, we’ll help Victoria recover faster and ensure our community continues to have access to the world-class they deserve.”