This was published 5 months ago
Triple-zero service stopped displaying waiting calls to ‘distressed’ staff, inquest told
By Aisha Dow
Victoria’s triple-zero service rejected an offer to borrow call-taking workers to help deal with an unprecedented surge in demand that overwhelmed the service in 2021 and likely led to a fatal ambulance delay.
Screens showing the number of emergency ambulance calls waiting to be answered were also temporarily switched off because the number grew so large it was considered too upsetting for the frontline staff working in the communication centres.
An example of a triple-zero wallboard, showing seven police calls waiting to be picked up.Credit: Communication Workers Union
“I do believe that [wallboard] function was turned off at some point [as] it was quite distressing for operators who were taking call after call,” Triple Zero Victoria chief operating officer Nicole Ashworth told the Coroners Court of Victoria on Tuesday.
She said managers could still see the data.
The account of the collapse of emergency ambulance call-taking was given during an inquest for Preston father Nick Panagiotopoulos, who died of a cardiac arrest in October 2021 following a 16-minute delay to connect to a triple-zero operator.
His death is one of 33 linked to the crisis.
Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald said she was forming the impression that the approach in Victoria in responding to the expected increase in triple-zero calls during the pandemic wasn’t as risk-averse as in other states, such as Queensland and NSW, which had “proactively sought funds” to increase their workforce.
The Coroners Court heard that the agency – which was at the time called the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) but has since rebadged as Triple Zero Victoria – should have begun planning in early 2020 for recruiting more staff.
A file photo of Triple Zero Victoria chief operating officer Nicole Ashworth (right) with an ambulance call-taker.Credit: Scott Barbour
However, it wasn’t until December 2020 that ESTA made a state budget bid for extra funding, and that funding for 43 extra workers wasn’t announced until May 2021, about a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic.
Asked what efforts were made to secure this funding more urgently, Ashworth said that none had occurred, and she didn’t believe ESTA had realised the significance of the volume of calls that might be coming.
She also revealed that at the time of Panagiotopoulos’ death, on October 16, 2021, ESTA hadn’t yet been able to fill all 43 new roles that they had been funded for as the recruitment process was slow.
Telstra also offered call-taking staff to ESTA in November 2021, but the offer was refused, the court heard.
Ashworth said ESTA had rejected the offer because its recruitment process was already under way, and it was considered “just as efficient to recruit from the general public”, as Telstra staff would have needed training in ambulance call-taking.
Telstra runs a national service that transfers triple-zero calls to the appropriate state and service. It was recently hit with an outage that prevented emergency calls being transferred to Victoria.
Ashworth wasn’t employed by ESTA until November 2021, after the agency’s ambulance call-taking performance had already collapsed.
Key people, including ESTA’s former chief executive Marty Smyth, who resigned in October 2021, isn’t yet listed as a witness in the inquest. Neither is Tony Pearce, the long-serving inspector-general for emergency management who, until February, led the agency responsible for monitoring ESTA’s call-taking performance and oversaw a review of ESTA.
Last year, cardiologist Associate Professor Nicholas Cox told the inquest that if emergency services had arrived even seven to 10 minutes after Nick Panagiotopoulos’ cardiac arrest, his “chances of survival were very good”.
Cox said the delay in connecting to the ambulance operator was “contributory” to the 47-year-old’s death.
On Tuesday, Ashworth listed changes that had been implemented since 2021 to Victoria’s emergency call-taking, which included a 25 per cent boost to the workforce.
She said that if Triple Zero Victoria was to experience a similar pandemic-like surge of demand on top of the current high call volumes, the service would be well placed to meet the demand. But, she said, it would be difficult and could not be guaranteed.
Ashworth paid tribute to the frontline call-takers at Triple Zero Victoria and conveyed her condolences on behalf of the service to the Panagiotopoulos family.
The inquest continues.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.