Tuesday, 17 June 2025

Ambulance services

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:38): (1713) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health. It is a really heartbreaking matter in fact. Last Thursday an elderly man in Blackburn called 000 after falling in his home and suffering a serious head injury. When no-one arrived, he called again, and despite being just a few minutes from Box Hill Hospital, it took almost 5 hours for an ambulance to reach him. By the time the paramedics arrived and firefighters forced entry, the man had, tragically, passed away. Reports now confirm that multiple ambulance crews were sitting outside Box Hill Hospital for this entire time, ramped and unable to respond. They were waiting for their current patients to be admitted and were not allowed to leave despite the emergency call. The paramedics who later attended the scene were reportedly distraught by what they found and the knowledge that they could have helped had they been free to do so.

I think if you just imagine it was one of your loved ones in this situation and the idea that you could call for an ambulance and it not arrive in such a critical situation – to me, it is just another breach of the social contract between government and the people. We accept taxes and we accept difficult decisions, but there is a basic return on that, and that is that when you call an ambulance in a life-threatening situation one comes, and to think that one was so close is just heartbreaking for that family, and my deepest condolences go to them. Sadly, this case is just the latest and most heartbreaking example of what happens when nothing changes. No amount of health funding announcements means anything if ambulances cannot get to people in time; no-one in Victoria should die when help is parked around the corner. The man deserved better, and his tragic death must lead to action, not just another review or internal report that this was preventable. The health system did not just fail, it abandoned him in his most vulnerable moment. It is unacceptable, and it must not happen again.

The action I seek from the minister is to implement urgent reforms to reduce ambulance ramping and improve emergency department capacity at hospitals like Box Hill, and Ambulance Victoria must be properly supported to ensure paramedics are never again prevented from responding to life-threatening calls to duty due to hospital delays.