In short:
The SA Ambulance Service has confirmed there was a delay in sending an ambulance to a patient last month, and the case has been referred to the coroner.
The death happened in the same month South Australia recorded its worst ramping.
What’s next?
The government says SA Health and the SA Ambulance Service will “provide full cooperation to any coronial investigation”.
A patient at a residential aged care home in Adelaide’s north-east has died while waiting around five hours for an ambulance, the state’s ambulance union says.
Ambulance Employees Association (AEA) general secretary Leah Watkins said she understood the patient was initially triaged as a priority 3 case, which the South Australian Ambulance Service (SAAS) said had a target response time of 30 minutes.
“I’m aware that at some point that case was upgraded to a priority 2 and then even later it was upgraded to a priority 1 but by the time the crew had arrived, that patient had passed away,” Ms Watkins said.
“I’m not sure what the time frame was from the point that it was then upgraded to a priority 2 and then a priority 1.
“But in any event, five hours is far too long for a patient to be waiting for an ambulance.”
Ms Watkins told ABC Radio Adelaide the death was “an absolute tragedy” and shared her condolences with the family.
“This is the last thing anyone wants or expects when you call the ambulance service. You would hope and expect — you should be able to expect — to have an ambulance in your time of need,” she said.
She said she had no detail about the medical condition of the patient prior to their death.
A spokesperson for SAAS confirmed there was a delay in attending to a patient in a residential aged care facility and has referred the case to the coroner.
July was South Australia’s worst month on record for ramping, with public hospital patients spending a total of 5,539 hours ramped in ambulances.
Ms Watkins said ramping has had “a detrimental impact” on ambulance response times.
“We’re hearing some very concerning reports from our members that crews have spent an entire 12-hour shift on the ramp with just the one patient, that there’s been up to 20 emergency cases uncovered at one given time and that there’s routinely priority 2s waiting with no ambulance to send,” she said.
“When those conditions exist, it increases the risk of this sort of event where someone dies waiting for an ambulance.
“It is really concerning that even when we have multiple emergencies with no ambulance to send — and when the ambulance service tries to escalate that within the Department of Health, or within [or] across the hospital network — that there is not a freeing up of ambulances in a prompt time frame.”
SA Deputy Premier Susan Close said she was “really disturbed” to hear of the patient’s death.
“Obviously [our] heart’s broken for the family of anyone who passes away, particularly when it’s under distressing circumstances like that,” Ms Close said.
“I’m informed that the health department, the ambulance service, will cooperate fully with the review that will be undertaken by the coroner and we’ll find out exactly what happened.
“We have invested enormously in the health system and we’re continuing to do that.”
SA Health Minister Chris Picton said ambulance response times have improved with more people receiving an ambulance on time.
“However, we acknowledge that there are still many more investments to make to improve response times further,” he said.
