Ambo wait before death
A HOWRAH man died after waiting four hours and 15 minutes for an ambulance, meaning he “had no chance of recovery”, a coroner has found.
The death of retired botanist, 77-year-old Alan Maurice Gray, is the latest revelation of a death linked to delays by ambulances, in hospital waiting rooms, or amid Tasmania’s “ramping” crisis.
In her findings published Tuesday, Coroner Olivia McTaggart said Mr Gray had fallen in September 2020 while putting air into his tyres, hitting the back of his head.
Several hours later, Mr Gray called for an ambulance using his personal alert – but the ambulance didn’t arrive until after midnight.
He was found on the floor near his reclining chair, “conscious and alert”, but died three days later.
Ms McTaggart said an error was made by the Ambulance Tasmania officer triaging the call, who entered Mr Gray’s case in the dispatch system as having occurred more – rather than fewer – than six hours earlier. “This would have resulted in the case being allocated a higher response priority,” she said.
The Coroner said ambulance personnel phoned Mr Gray about two hours after his initial call, with no answer, but did not upgrade the priority of his case as it should have been.
Ms McTaggart also said there was a patient off-loading delay at Royal Hobart Hospital, contributing to a lack of ambulances available at the time.
She also said there were insufficient crews at the time of the call and a generally high ambulance caseload in the region.
The coroner said since Mr Gray’s death, Ambulance Tasmania had implemented education and follow-up for staff on its medical priority dispatch system and had introduced a call-back procedure “specifying rules around patient follow-up and call-back in the event of delays in attendance”.
“Unfortunately, Mr Gray suffered a serious head injury, with extensive bleeding. Based upon the expert medical opinion in this case, I am not able to find that the sad outcome for Mr Gray would have been different if he had been transported to the hospital at an earlier time,” Ms McTaggart said.
“However, the delay meant that he had no chance of recovery.”
In April, the Mercury reported that an elderly man who waited nearly seven hours for an ambulance died by the time a crew arrived.
It followed several reports about seriously ill patients affected by the hospital’s “ramping” crisis, where paramedics were required to wait in ramped vehicles for sometimes hours at a time until they could be admitted.
Chief Executive of Ambulance Tasmania Joe Acker said the Department of Health acknowledged the “deeply distressing nature” of the case and following an internal review Ambulance Tasmania had implemented a number of changes.
“The department is committed to continuous improvement and will carefully consider the Coroner’s report, noting no recommendations were made,” Mr Acker said.