Ambo delay anger

By Jade Lawton
And she is not the only one. New statistics list Pakenham and Officer among Victoria’s worst suburbs for ambulance response times, with injured residents waiting about 15 minutes for assistance.
Martin Graham said he woke just before 1.30am on Saturday 27 February to hear his mother-in-law, Lorraine, who lives in a granny flat on his Officer property, calling his name.
“She slipped off the toilet and said, “I think I’ve broken my hip’. As soon as I moved her I heard a noise and I rang the ambos straight away,” he said.
Mr Graham explained to the 000 operator that his mother-in-law had serious medical conditions, including a triple-bypass, bowel cancer, septicaemia and an amputated toe.
“They said they would get here within 30 minutes.”
Mr Graham, who has first-aid training, covered his mother-in-law with blankets and talked to her to keep her calm.
Fifty minutes after the first call, he dialled 000 again but paramedics did not arrive until 3am.
The driver of the ambulance then asked Mr Graham for directions back to the freeway.
“I would have expected they would take no longer than 15 to 20 minutes,” Mr Graham said, “And an hour and a half is not good enough.”
Mrs Graham, 74, has been a paid-up member of Ambulance Victoria for more than 20 years.
Ambulance Victoria operations manager Simon Thomson said the case was being investigated.
“There are a lot of factors that contribute to response times, but I think what is not understood is that between midnight and 2am on the night of this case, someone in suburban Melbourne was calling for an ambulance every minute,” he said.
“We are busy and we need to prioritise which cases our paramedics go to first. This can result in delays, especially in outlying suburbs where distances between ambulance branches can be big if one ambulance is already on a case.
“I understand that it would be distressing for the woman involved in this case and we always try to get there as quickly as possible. An ambulance had been dispatched on this case but was then sent to a more urgent case.”
Brad Battin, the Liberal candidate for the Gembrook electorate, said the wait time was not good enough.
Statistics obtained through Freedom of Information showed that in October 2009 Pakenham residents waited on average 14.46 minutes for paramedics – worse than in June 2008 when residents were left waiting for about 11 minutes.
“The response times through all of Cardinia (shire) is well down on what is expected,” Mr Battin said.
“The Labor government has promised time and time again to reduce the time. This is not an isolated incident. I know someone who had a fall in Pakenham, and the ambos came from Yarra Junction, picking up staff on the way in Emerald.
“Five families a day are moving (to Cardinia Shire) and there is a lack of funding for health and infrastructure. You can’t find a bad ambulance officer, they are fantastic. It’s the system they work in.”