New data reveals that NSW ambulances are taking longer to respond to emergencies than at any time, as records were publicly available 12 years ago.
Key points:
- The average time for responses to the most urgent cases was within the 10-minute target
- With 8.8 minutes it is on the highest note since BHI records were first published
- Mother Bree Edge said waiting an hour for an ambulance was “not acceptable”
The quarterly report of the Office of Health Information (BHI) monitored the performance of public hospitals and ambulance services from January to March this year.
“Overall, patients waited longer to receive care in the emergency departments, for elective surgery and ambulances,” said BHI Executive Director Dr. Diane Watson.
The quarter saw a high number of Omicron cases and a relaxation of public health restrictions, leading to a “fluctuation in the activity and performance of the hospital and ambulances,” the doctor said. Watson.
The average time for ambulances to respond to the most urgent cases was 8.8 minutes, the highest since the IHB began reporting in 2010, but within the 10-minute target.
In 39 of the Greater Sydney regions, average response times increased in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period last year.
In Wollondilly, ambulances took an average of 11 minutes to respond to the most urgent cases, a two-minute increase over 2021.
Bree Edge’s five-year-old daughter, Asha, who has adrenal insufficiency, was losing consciousness when she called an ambulance to her home in Buxton in February this year.
The ambulance took an hour to arrive, a response time he described as “absolutely unacceptable”.
“I don’t blame the paramedics, I don’t blame the medical staff, but overall it’s not entirely good that patients in serious situations are waiting an hour or more for an ambulance,” he told ABC.
The average ambulance response for all emergencies was 15.7 minutes and 40% of the most urgent cases were within the 10-minute target, both of which were the worst since start reporting in 2010.
Bree Edge and her five-year-old daughter Asha were forced to wait an hour to receive an ambulance. (Supplied)
The NSW ambulance responded to 326,544 calls during the quarter, of which 9,360, a record high, were classified as immediate life-threatening.
NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan said there had been a “massive increase” in triple 0 calls during the pandemic.
Australian ambulance services launched a campaign called Save Triple-0 for Emergency on Tuesday.
ED delay
Once patients arrived at the emergency department, they faced long waits.
Three out of four patients waited more than four hours before being admitted, while one in 10 spent more than 18 hours in the emergency department.
But NSW Health Secretary Susan Pearce said the figure was “not a waiting time, it’s a treatment time”.
“You may have arrived, you are receiving treatment very quickly within the time limit of your arrival, and this treatment continues beyond four hours.
“When you talk about emergencies, it’s one thing to talk about data points, it’s another to talk about effort.”
He said the number of patients classified in the most severe “emergency” category increased by 8.2%.
The pressures multiply
While the number of COVID cases is declining, a bad flu season continues to put pressure on emergency services.
Two hundred and twenty people with influenza-like illness, which did not include patients with COVID, were admitted to emergency services hospitals in the first week of June.
More than 500 children went to the emergency department with bronchiolitis and 39% of them had to be admitted to hospital.
Breaks in elective surgery during the pandemic were also reflected in the report.
Only 80 percent of all elective surgeries were performed on time, the lowest result since the BHI report began.
The waiting times for semi-urgent elective surgery were the longest ever recorded.
“This quarter simply can’t be compared to any other quarter ever recorded, it was an extraordinary period for our health care system,” Ms. Pearce said.
Posted 1 hour, 1 hour ago, Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 7:03 PM, updated 2 m ago, 2 minutes ago, Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 8:25 PM