Victorian man dies waiting for ambulance

A Victorian patient has died while waiting for specialist paramedics as pressure mounts on the state to fix the overworked and under-resourced industry.

The patient, from Melbourne’s eastern suburb of Montrose, reportedly died while waiting 40 minutes for specialist paramedics on Wednesday night.

The patient called for an ambulance at 9.23pm after suffering breathing problems and then went into cardiac arrest.

Despite paramedics responding to the call immediately, the closest mobile intensive care ambulance, which was called in for assistance, wasn’t dispatched until 10.05pm.

It is the third death connected to the issue this year after a 32-year-old woman was found dead in her home more than six hours after calling an ambulance.

A Melbourne father died earlier this month after his frantic calls to triple-0 went unanswered for 15 minutes.

Ambulance Victoria is referring the latest case for a review.

“The pandemic continues to have a significant impact on the healthcare system, including Ambulance Victoria,” a spokesman said.

“Our paramedics have been working extremely hard for over 20 months to manage the increasing demand while prioritising care to the sickest Victorians.”

Grave issues have been revealed within the sector over the past 18 months, with the pandemic highlighting major gaps that need to be addressed.

Authorities are investigating the case of a three-year-old girl who died from cardiac arrest near Bendigo after her family’s triple-0 call was placed on hold as well as two others who died from the same health issue when their calls went unanswered.

It was also revealed on Monday that much of Melbourne’s inner west was left without MICA coverage on Friday and Saturday night.

Staff shortages left Ambulance Victoria unable to roster MICA crews in Preston, Altona, central Melbourne, Roxburgh Park and Hillside – leaving only MICA crews in Tarneit and Sunshine to cover more than a third of Melbourne’s population, the Herald Sun reported.

The state’s ambulance union has highlighted severe pressure on the industry, telling Melbourne radio station 3AW that recruitment hasn’t kept up with population growth, leading to a shortage of paramedics.

“It’s unfortunately a fairly common occurrence that we see happen where MICA paramedics are not available because they’re attending to lower cases,” union boss Danny Hill said.

“We’re seeing these shortages of MICA paramedics regularly, so it’s not out of the ordinary, it’s bad and sadly we’re seeing it far too often.

“We just don’t have enough MICA at the moment to provide the service the community expect.”