Ambulance Victoria has enacted its seventh red code climb in so many months, with service overflowing with overnight demand.
Key points:
- Ambulance Victoria issued its seventh red code of 2022 overnight
- A “sudden rise” in calls around midnight overwhelmed the service
- Victoria Ambulance has urged people to save triple 0 calls for emergencies
The red code was called shortly before 2 a.m. and was in place for about 90 minutes.
As part of the procedure, the ambulance service summons additional staff off duty, performs rapid discharge of patients to hospitals and sends non-urgent ambulances to respond to cases.
Ambulance Victoria Executive Director of Operations Communications Lindsay Mackay said there were no extraordinary factors that led to the red code.
“There was really nothing we could see that was different, other than we had a sudden increase in calls that came in around midnight,” Ms. Mackay said.
“They kept coming in for a couple of hours and that’s really what led us to activate the climbing plan.”
Lindsay Mackay says overwhelming demand for ambulances dropped after about an hour and a half. (ABC News)
Red code repeated for the last six months
The first red code for the Victoria ambulance arrived just five days into the new year, as the COVID-19 set aside 500 paramedics and staff and left the service stretched during the holidays.
Another was called on Jan. 11, with reports that 21 critical cases were facing a delay in sending them an ambulance.
Another climb was called briefly on March 29, while technical difficulties with the shipping system led to a climb of just over an hour on May 27.
That year another red code was called, but Ambulance Victoria was unable to report it to the ABC when it happened.
The most recent red code arrived on June 28, with ambulances unable to meet demand for four hours.
In comparison, only nine were convened between 2017 and 2021.
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Mrs. Mackay urged Victorians to carefully consider whether they needed an ambulance before calling one.
“We’re aware that this is obviously not the first time we’ve called the code red,” Ms. Mackay said.
“For us it’s really asking the community to save triple 0 for emergencies.”
He said Victorians could reach out to a number of telehealth services such as Nurse-On-Call (1300 60 60 24) for medical advice instead of calling an ambulance.