Locals are being urged to have their say on a parliamentary inquiry into Ambulance Victoria.
Mildura MP Jade Benham says ambos across Victoria are overworked and undermanned and are reaching breaking point.
“The most recent Ambulance Victoria data indicates alarming shortcomings when it comes to response times for code 1 emergencies across the region (the most serious and urgent cases),” Ms Benham adds.
Ambulance Victoria’s official response time targets are that 85 per cent of code 1 emergencies are responded to within 15 minutes but according to Ambulance Victoria’s Annual Report, many areas are nowhere near those numbers in the 2022/23 reporting period,” she says.
“Some of the figures might not seem a huge difference, but minutes, even seconds, count when lives are on the line. In some regional areas that number plummets into the 50 and 60 per cent deciles.”
“The inquiry is seeking submissions from the public, with both employees and patients encouraged to contribute, and the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee will inquire into everything involved with call taking, dispatch, ambulance ramping, working conditions and workloads of paramedics, governance and accountability within Ambulance Victoria (AV).”
Submissions close on February 28, with public hearings to be scheduled thereafter.