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READ MORE: Elderly man dies after waiting five hours for an ambulance
Sunrise host Nat Barr has labelled Victoria’s handling of the ambulance crisis ‘ridiculous’ amid reports that just one per cent of the fleet were able to respond to calls.
The Seven presenter said authorities must fix the issue rapidly following revelations that 50 people were left waiting for emergency medical care on Monday night.
Ambulance data showed more than 25 crews were off the roads across
Melbourne
due to staff shortages, while at least another 110 crews were stuck ramped at hospitals by 7.15pm.
Paramedics were forced to care for patients in the vehicle while waiting for a hospital bed to become available, meaning they could not get back out on the road and respond to more calls for help.
Danny Hill, from the Victorian Ambulance Union, outlined how dire the situation had become.
‘We had 22 advanced life support and eight mobile intensive care ambulances that actually didn’t run on Monday night,’ Mr Hill said.
‘We had a very busy workload and the hospitals were overwhelmed and, at one point, we believe about 100 crews were ramped at metropolitan hospitals across Melbourne, sometimes for up to ten hours.
‘I’m informed it left one per cent of the metropolitan Melbourne ambulance fleet able to respond to anyone in an emergency.’
Barr was alarmed at how Victoria’s public health sector had been allowed to deteriorate to this point.
‘This is an absolute cluster, this is absolutely ridiculous,’ she said before asking Mr Hill what would be done about the problem.
‘Taxpayers pay for their ambulance service to be there in a time of emergency,’ Mr Hill said.
‘Too often we see them logged off emergency work to work in hospital corridors, to organise GP appointments and to do social work instead of being free to respond to genuine emergencies.
‘Just the other night an ambulance was called to someone complaining of gaming addiction. Paramedics don’t have anything to offer that person.’
Barr asked why paramedics were receiving calls about non-emergency and even non-medical issues.
‘Why isn’t someone saying “no” and redirecting them, surely?’ she asked.
‘Correct, and they’re being sent to those calls, that’s the problem,’ Mr Hill said.
‘The calls are coming through, and always will, and some of these patients do need help but not from ambulance paramedics.’
Barr said a common-sense approach needed to be taken towards the unforgivable situation Ambulance Victoria found itself in on Monday night.
‘Surely someone can fix this, it’s just absolutely ridiculous,’ she said.
Data leaked to the Herald Sun exposed that more than ten major hospitals had wait times of more than two hours by 8pm, with some as high as ten hours.
Premier Jacinta Allan said winter was to blame for the spike in demand for ambulances.
‘We are clearly in the depths of winter where many people are suffering from the impacts of flus, and Covid is still around, and a lot of respiratory illnesses,’ she said.
Two Victorians died waiting for ambulances in June alone, including an elderly Blackburn man who bled to death after falling and hitting his head.
He phoned for an ambulance twice, but it took almost five hours for one to arrive, while six crews were ramped at Box Hill Hospital, just one suburb away.
Daily Mail Australia contacted the Department of Health and Ambulance Victoria for comment.
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