St John Ambulance wait time leaves 80-year-old Perth grandma dead

An 80-year-old grandma has tragically died after it took nearly 2.5 hours for ambulances to arrive at her home.

An 80-year-old grandma has died of a suspected heart attack after she was forced to wait for two-and-a-half hours for paramedics to arrive at her home in Ashby in Perth.

Georgina Wild died on her couch, with her television switched on, and the front door unlocked, with paramedics declaring her deceased at 4.52am on Sunday, Nine News reports.

This was nearly two-and-a-half hours after Ms Wild placed her initial triple-0 call at 2.30am, complaining of chest pains. Although her call was flagged as an urgent Priority 1 case – which means paramedics should have arrived within 15 minutes – she later received a call at around 3am and 3.30am, informing her that no ambulances were available.

Ms Wild received another call at 4am, however she didn’t answer.

Georgina Wild died after waiting 2.5 hours for an ambulance. Picture: Nine News.

It was only until after she died that staff from St Johns ambulance left a voice message on her phone.

“Hi Georgina. It’s Daniel from St John Ambulance Call Centre here, just calling to check in,” the message said.

Ms Wild’s family are now demanding answers, sharing their fury that it took them more than eight hours to be told of Ms Wild’s death.

In the past week, St John Ambulances have issued two public alerts warning of delayed services due to “extremely high demand” in metropolitan Perth.

This comes as rising Covid cases in WA have strained the state’s hospital system.

Most recent case figures from May 16 show the state recorded 12,266 new cases to 8pm on Sunday night, with WA’s Department of Health confirming a total of 88,221 active cases on the same day. They issued a similar warning for 13 hours from Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning, blaming crew shortages and high call volumes.

“St John is about to alert the public via social media messaging the service is experiencing extremely high demand for ambulances in metropolitan Perth,” they shared in a statement on Sunday afternoon.

“It is likely there will be a delay in an ambulance reaching people who call triple-0.

“While we appreciate there will be a high level of interest in this messaging, our priority is to meet patient demand during this time.”

The increased demand had eased by Monday morning, the ambulance provider confirmed in a Facebook post.

Ambulance services have been strained due to the uptick in Covid cases in WA. Picture: Che Chorley.

In light of the tragedy, WA’s Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said an investigation into the death will be conducted by St John, with Ms Sanderson advocating for representation from the Department of Health.

“It is absolutely critical that when someone urgently needs an ambulance, it arrives in a timely fashion,” she told The West Australian.

“I expect St John to do everything reasonably within its power to deliver a timely and effective service for the people of Western Australia.

“This includes activating the critical worker policy to reduce staff furlough pressure, which I understand has now been done.”