Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority
Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:13): My question is again to the Minister for Emergency Services. Minister, Jodie accidentally fell down the steps in her home and heard her leg snap. She broke both her tibia and fibula. She was in an awkward position at the bottom of the steps and in excruciating pain. Her husband dialled 000 and after an initial delay finally got through, requesting an ambulance. The dispatchers could not tell Jodie’s husband when an ambulance would arrive as it was a busy evening. As Jodie lay in agony, her husband called back multiple times to 000, wanting to know when an ambulance would arrive. Over 5 hours later and at 2.30 am, the ambulance arrived. The government and you have been critical of Victorians who have repeatedly dialled 000, so I ask: what was Jodie’s husband to do in such a situation?
Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:14): I thank Ms Crozier for her question, and indeed I hope that Jodie’s recovery has been good. It sounds like a terrible situation in relation to a severe fracture of her leg. It is not for me to be able to advise how the clinical assessments that are undertaken by the dispatch team are prioritised. It depends on the categories of calls coming in at the time. What Jodie’s husband did was appropriate, calling 000. As you said, he got through and had advice that an ambulance would be made available. She waited some time, but that would usually mean that there were cases in the area where ambulances would have had to respond to category 1 priorities, life-and-death situations. It is a difficult situation when you are in pain, but if somebody is in a life-threatening situation, that will obviously take precedence. The situation you described would normally—as I said, I am not clinically trained to provide advice, but it sounds like it would—be a code 2, which would not require urgent dispatch. This is something that the trained operators are responsible for: providing the categories, providing the advice and providing the dispatch.
Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:15): Thank you, Minister, for your response. Minister, you said you hoped Jodie was recovering well. She is still suffering what she describes as being traumatised from the experience. In fact she says:
In our time of need, it became acutely obvious nobody cared enough and this is a shocking realisation. Nobody cared enough to ensure the ambulance service in this state was adequately equipped, staffed 24 hours a day, every day of the year. We deserve better, my family deserved better, I deserved better.
Minister, you are not the minister responsible for ambulance services, I understand, but your portfolios are intrinsically linked, so I ask: what do you say to Jodie, who believes she deserves better than a failing 000 service and a failing ambulance system?
Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:16): Ms Crozier, what I would say to Jodie is what I say to every person that has contacted me in relation to having an unsatisfactory experience with 000. I am the Minister for Emergency Services, and it is my intention to ensure that I do everything in my power to work with ESTA to ensure the service improves. We have had unprecedented demand. The calls are 1000 more a year than they were at prepandemic levels. This is something that has my full attention, and it is people like Jodie that motivate me every day to get up and make sure that I am talking to ESTA, campaigning for additional funding, which I have delivered—$115 million announced recently—
Ms Crozier interjected.
Ms SYMES: You asked me what I am doing and what I am saying to Jodie, and I am answering your question. My commitment to Jodie is that I will continue to work damn hard to make this system better for people like Jodie and the rest of Victoria.
Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:17): I move:
That the minister’s answers be taken into consideration on the next day of meeting.
Motion agreed to.