Thursday, 24 February 2022

Adjournment

Ambulance response times

Mr WALSH (Murray Plains) (17:01): (6236) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Health, and I am seeking answers on behalf of constituents in Swan Hill as to why families have had to wait so long when they have rung 000 for ambulances. The first family I am raising this on behalf of is that of Christopher Larkings, who has made an inquiry about his elderly mother who tragically had a fall one morning. Her personal alarm did not activate until 2.20 in the afternoon, and he rang an ambulance at 2.25 pm. He then called again at 3.01 pm. He then called again at 3.30 pm. At 3.45 pm he called again, but it was not until 4 o’clock that an ambulance arrived for his mother. It was basically an hour and a half from when the first call was made to when an ambulance arrived. He has said to me that he is extremely disappointed with the response time of that ambulance. What he mentioned to me was yes, his mother had a fall and now she has recovered and is all right, but if she had been critically ill, she would have passed away before the ambulance arrived. He wants answers as to why it took an ambulance an hour and a half to arrive from the first call he made to 000.

The other person I raise this on behalf of is Joan Edwards, who was the wife of Alfred, and her son, David, who were well reported on in the Herald Sun. They still have not had a satisfactory response as to why after a number of calls to Ambulance Victoria there was not an ambulance turning up there. This was more tragic than the Larkings family case in that Alfred passed away while his wife was there because the ambulance did not come.

I think both those families are owed a response from the Minister for Health as to why those ambulances did not come in time. We pay our taxes. Most people pay the fees to the ambulance service, and when they are ill—particularly when they are elderly—they expect an ambulance to come within a satisfactory response time from when it is called. We are having reports nearly every day coming into the office now, or other MPs’ offices, as to the fact that the ambulance service is not responding in a suitable time, that 000 does not have enough people answering the calls. I would ask the Minister for Health to please respond to the Edwards family and to the Larkings family as to why ambulances did not come in satisfactory times when they were called.