Thursday, 12 May 2022

Ambulance services

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (14:11): My question is to the Minister for Health. At 11.20 am on 31 March this year, Danny Leatham of Orbost was advised he would be transferred from Orbost hospital to Monash after a cardiac event. Two flights were cancelled before he was told he would depart nearby Marlo more than 5 hours later, but the plane never arrived. Only after an inquiry did ESTA advise the flight had been cancelled, but no-one had told the local ambulance crew waiting at Marlo airport. Danny was then transferred to Bairnsdale, where he was ramped for an hour before being finally taken to the Bairnsdale airport for transfer. He arrived at Monash but was ramped again for another 4 hours, meaning it had been 16 hours since his cardiac event. Danny died two days later. I ask on behalf of his family: does the minister take any responsibility at all for the systemic failures leading up to Mr Leatham death?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:12): Can I thank the member for Gippsland East for his question. I am sure I join all honourable members in expressing deep sympathy and condolences to Danny’s family and his many friends. In regard to the specifics of the circumstances that the honourable member has raised, like all of these events, they are subject to a process of review and assessment by a range of independent agencies as well as the various health services themselves.

In regard to the question that the honourable member asks, my answer is of course as the Minister for Health I am accountable to the people of Victoria and to this Parliament for the performance of our health system in the course—particularly as it comes out of that—of a once-in-a-century global pandemic that has seen the entire health system, primary care and acute care and ambulance services, right across the country, and indeed right across the world, respond to acute pressures that it has never before recorded.

As I understand the honourable member’s question in terms of the time frame that he set out, that reflected, in terms of the entire history of our ambulance services, the busiest quarter on record that the ambulance services had ever had. This matter was recently addressed—in fact there are media reports only today—in a report by the Australian Medical Association pointing to the Australia-wide nature of this set of real, huge challenges that all of our services are facing, particularly our ambulance services. In rating how services have responded across all states and jurisdictions it has called upon all levels of government to do more, but it has particularly called upon the commonwealth government to come to the party and assist all the states and territories in a fair distribution of resource sharing and addressing this really significant set of challenges. This state under this government has commenced that process—a $12 billion process of pandemic recovery that includes significant funding for precisely the set of circumstances that the honourable member has pointed to. In regard to the tragic set of circumstances the honourable member sets out in his question, of course we all offer our deepest condolences, and we wish the family the best in these very tragic circumstances.

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (14:16): Throughout this ordeal Danny’s family, who are watching today, were not advised of his whereabouts. They believed he departed Marlo airport at 5.00 pm the previous night. They never knew he had been ramped in Bairnsdale. They never knew he had been flown from Bairnsdale and then ramped again for 4 hours at Monash. Apart from the horrendous delays he experienced, how is it that Danny’s family were not advised of his whereabouts, and they only became aware after a phone call from him just before his death?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:16): Can I thank the member for Gippsland East, and through him to Danny’s family I reiterate our deepest condolences and best wishes at a very tragic time.

In regard to the broader issue, as I have reported in answering the substantive question relating to how these matters are reviewed, I will necessarily leave that review process and the engagement with Danny’s family as part of that to that process. But in relation to the broader question of how patients and families are kept apprised of processes as allocations are made under the distribution of services model that Ambulance Victoria deliver, that is made on the basis of clinical priority decisions, and in doing so Ambulance Victoria, based on international and Australia-wide criteria, deliver those services and that advice in a consistent manner.