Staley: System at breaking point

Member for Ripon Louise Staley has called on the State Government to immediately address ‘worsening’ ambulance response times in Ararat.

Ms Staley said latest Ambulance Victoria data revealed 58.9 percent of code-one call-outs in Ararat were attended by an ambulance within a 15-minute target.

She said Ararat was well below the statewide average of 75.1 percent and even further behind the Ambulance Victoria target of 85 percent.

Ms Staley was commenting on statistics reflecting call-outs from January 1 until March 31, 2021.

She said the percentage of code-one patients treated within 15 minutes had fallen by 3.9 percent compared with the preceding quarter and there had been a 10.7 percent drop compared with the same period last year.

“Our region’s hard-working paramedics, ambulance community officers and community emergency response teams do an incredible job under challenging circumstances, but they urgently need more resources,” she said.

“Every one of these statistics is a person who didn’t get an ambulance in the time the Andrews Labor government promised he or she would, and they reflect an ambulance system at breaking point and badly under-resourced.”

Ms Staley said Premier Daniel Andrews, in the lead-up to the 2014 election, had spoken about ambulance response times, saying, ‘those minutes matter and too many people have waited too long for an ambulance and, you know, people have actually died, and we can’t settle for that’.

“It seems, in the case of ambulance-response times, the Premier’s memory is short, and when it comes down to it, he is willing to risk lives and settle for a system in crisis,” she said.

Ms Staley’s comments followed a similar call from Member for Lowan Emma Kealy.

Ms Kealy said Lowan residents were also facing longer waits for ambulances, with statistic showing western Victorian municipalities experienced some of the poorest response times in the state.

She said code-one call-out response times, based on urgent ‘lights and sirens’ incidents in Lowan, had increased in every municipality except one.

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Ms Kealy said response times in West Wimmera, Yarriambiack, Northern Grampians and Hindmarsh municipalities were among the slowest in the state, with respective figures of 32.1, 31.5, 58.3 and 56.6 percent of code-one call-outs responded to within 15 minutes.

“Average response times for code-one callouts have also increased in the urban centres of Horsham and Hamilton,” she said.

“Code-two incident-response times were lengthier than the same period last year in Ararat, Glenelg, Hindmarsh, Horsham, Moyne, Northern Grampians and Yarriambiack municipalities.

“It doesn’t matter where you live – every minute counts when you need an ambulance.

“Our paramedics and ambulance officers do an outstanding job in very challenging circumstances, but we continue to see a decline in response times in regional areas under Labor.

“Living in regional Victoria should not mean you have to wait longer for a life-saving ambulance. The urgent health needs of western Victorian residents are just as important as those of Melbourne residents.”