EIGHT people requiring life or death medical attention had to wait because of a city-wide Ambulance Victoria communications breakdown recently.
An internal email to ambulance staff, seen by NW, said the in-car case information system paramedics rely on failed early on the morning of Sunday, March 18.
And at 12.30am, the system that provides communications centre staff with paramedics’ locations and availability also went down.
Forty cases across Melbourne were pending by 3.30am, meaning there was no available ambulance.
Eight of those cases were life-threatening code one emergencies. Government guidelines stipulate that ambulances should be sent to code one cases – such as a cardiac arrest or serious traffic accident – within 100 seconds, with paramedics on the scene in 15 minutes.
Twenty-two code two cases, requiring urgent response, were also waiting and paramedics did not reach one patient for five hours, although the response time is 25 minutes.
It is not known how long the code one and code two cases were left pending, but paramedics said some patients were driven to hospitals by family members and police.
Ambulance Employees Association secretary Steve McGhie said code one cases should never have to wait.
“On a normal Saturday night, there may be up to 20 patients pending although the majority would be code three, non-urgent cases,” he said.
Mr McGhie said the figures provided “damning evidence” of a failing system that puts lives at risk.
“This was a very bad night but it’s not a one-off. It happens regularly,” he said. “These problems threaten lives. People will die.”
The ambulance union said the failure put enormous pressure on communications staff, who could not access paramedics’ locations while paramedics could not see job details.
A senior paramedic said the shift was “chaotic” and “relentless”.
