Several ambulances across Australia are not reaching the most urgent call outs in time, data has revealed.
Highest priority cases – labelled 1(a) cases – require the emergency service to arrive within ten minutes, however up to seven recent examples show that is not being reached.
An ambulance in July failed to fit within the expected time frame when a patient who had gone into cardiac arrest died after it took took 26 minutes to get to Toronto, south of Newcastle, the Daily Telegraph reported.
New data has revealed ambulances across Australia attending some of the country’s most urgent call outs are missing their targets
Highest priority cases – labelled 1(a) cases, require the emergency service to arrive within ten minutes however up to seven recent examples show that is not being reached
The previous month a Mascot patient had to wait 22 minutes before receiving treatment for severe breathing difficulties.
Another patient, in May, who was struggling to breath and had gone into cardiac arrest was made to wait 17 minutes.
A spokesperson for Ambulance NSW said all instances were upgraded to the highest priority rating later and not initially.
In five of the seven cases once the status had been updated to the highest emergency help did arrive within the ten minutes.
Information reflects however that the 10-minute response time was missed in 43 per cent of 1(a) cases across Camden, Campbelltown and Picton between April and June,
In Richmond, Springwood and Penrith 33 per cent of cases were not met.
One spokesperson said this reflected the need for more paramedics another suggested the patient’s locations need to also be considered.
In five of the seven cases once the status had been updated to the highest emergency help did arrive within the ten minutes
‘You have an increase in residents but when a new suburb springs up there is no new ambulance station,’ Australian Paramedics Association delegate Liu Bianchi said.
Ms Bianchi admitted there is some potential that lives are endangered as a result.
APA president Steve Pearce said as the demand gets higher the necessity for more staff also rises.
‘The workload is ever-increasing yet the resource base is stagnant. We’ve been asking for two years to have at least another 500 paramedics across the state cover the existing workload.’
Ambulance NSW said on Friday the response times were consistent over the last three years.