Tara Murray
Brimbank residents are waiting longer for an ambulance, with waiting times blowing out in the past 12 months according to new data.
Ambulance Victoria’s (AV) performance data for the June quarter, revealed that waiting times in Brimbank for both code one and two incidents had increased in the year to June 30.
Seventy-seven per cent of code one cases were responded to within the benchmark of 15 minutes in the June quarter, down from 89 per cent 12 months earlier.
The average waiting time for a code one incident increased to 13.04 minutes in June, 2021, up from 10.22 minutes in June, 2020.
The number of code one cases grew slightly from 2225 to June, 2020, to 2690 in June, 2021.
For code two cases, Brimbank residents are waiting on average nearly an extra 17 minutes on the previous 12 months.
In the June 2021 quarter, the average waiting time for a code two response was 37.29 minutes, up from 20.53.
Overall there has been a drop in response times across the state.
Just 73.1 per cent of code one cases had an ambulance arrive within the 15-minute response time target.
Ambulance Victoria Union secretary Danny Hill said paramedics had experienced an increased workload over the past 12 months.
“There were 84,441 code one cases in [the June]quarter compared to 66,906 in the same quarter the previous year,” he said.
“That increased workload is having a massive on effect on our members and a lot are hitting burnout.
“Paramedics and ambulance workers are exhausted. There is no downtime, they are regularly missing meal breaks and are working dangerous amounts of incidental overtime”.
The union said that sick leave is at an all-time high, which left many stations resourced.
The union called for patients to look after their health in a bid to reduced the number of people needing to call an ambulance or present to an emergency department.
