Ambulance delays link to 21 deaths

AMBULANCE waiting times continue to blow out, as damning new figures reveal there have been 21 deaths linked to critical delays.

Ambulance Victoria acting chief executive Libby Murphy on Friday told the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee that slightly more than half of all code 1 cases were being met within the 15-minute benchmark.

A code 1 emergency is something deemed to be timecritical and requires a “lights and sirens” response, such as cardiac or respiratory arrest.

Ms Murphy told the committee time-critical cases were, on average, being met about 60 per cent of the time.

“It has dipped into the 50th percentile and we continue to work very, very hard to serve the community,” she said.

Ms Murphy confirmed 21 incidents – treated as being a “sentinel event” – were under investigation by authorities.

Only three have been linked directly to Ambulance Victoria, while the other 18 are being treated as the responsibility of besieged call-taking agency ESTA.

A sentinel event refers to incidents that are preventable but result in serious harm to, or the death of, a patient.

Liberal MP and committee member James Newbury called on Health and Ambulance Services Minister Martin Foley to apologise to the Victorian families who had been failed by the emergency services crisis.

“I have apologised for the unacceptable arrangements, where in the circumstances of people, particularly ringing triple-0, that they haven’t got the service they are entitled to,” Mr Foley told the committee. “Every death is a tragedy.” A fired up Mr Newbury interjected: “So say sorry. We have 21 deaths.

“This isn’t a joke. These are weasel words.”

“Twenty-one people have died and you have refused to say the word sorry.”