Over 30 died due to delays at Australia's overloaded emergency service: Report

More than 30 people died in Victoria, Australia, due to delays or lengthy ambulance waits at the state's emergency call service during the coronavirus pandemic, a new review reveals.

The pandemic overloaded Victoria's triple-zero call service and caused delays in emergency services, with one caller waiting more than 76 minutes for their emergency call to be answered in January, according to a report by Inspector-General for Emergency Management Tony Pearce.

The Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) call answer speed had “fallen below community and government expectations,” said the report.

“Tragically, 33 people did not survive these emergencies,” Pearce said on Saturday.

“This does not necessarily mean that call answer delay was a contributing factor, because in some cases no amount of rapid intervention would have saved the patient,” he added.

Pearce said he did not make any findings about whether faster intervention would have stopped those deaths, though.

“I therefore apologize to the families and friends of those 33 people, if their expectations of this report are not met concerning the circumstances of their loved ones’ emergencies,” he said.

There were “missed opportunities and failings” in the system, Pearce said.

“Victorians expect that when they call triple zero (000), their call will be answered promptly,” he wrote.

In some cases, calls were queued for 15 minutes and longer, the report said.

Esta “simply did not have sufficient ambulance call-takers to meet incredible demand,” the review found, and fewer than 70% of triple-zero calls were answered within five seconds during the pandemic.

Esta did not have the funding to recruit more staff, and “missed an opportunity” to seek urgent government funding in 2020.

By January 2022, as the Omicron variant spread, just 39% of calls were answered in the benchmark time.

“On 14 January, 2022, Esta received 2,501 calls, with 139 calls waiting more than ten minutes for Esta to answer, with the longest waiting over 76 minutes,” the review found.

“Over the six months from October 2021 to March 2022, Esta reported the lowest emergency ambulance call answer performance in its history,” it wrote.

The Victorian government has accepted the findings.

When the state’s lockdowns ended and restrictions were eased at the end of last year, demand on the system increased.

ESTA plays a critical role in Victoria’s emergency management response model. The services connect people in need of immediate emergency assistance with Victorian emergency service organizations (ESOs). 

But the latest report has raised significant concerns around the effectiveness of ESTA’s capability and capacity to deliver consistent Triple Zero (000) services across Victoria.

Victoria went through one of the toughest ordeal of any state in Australia during the pandemic.

The state has recorded 17 more COVID-19 deaths and 2,393 new cases on Friday. There are 295 cases in hospital, 13 of those in intensive care. 

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