Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority
Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (14:15): My question is to the Minister for Ambulance Services. A constituent in South Gippsland contacted me this week about his experiences with Ambulance Victoria. His wife had a fall while volunteering at the local football on Saturday and was in extreme pain. As a football trainer with advanced first-aid qualifications, he was concerned she had broken her hip. After calling 000 and explaining his wife’s situation, my constituent was told that an ambulance would not be dispatched until she was triaged. He was dismayed when he was then put through to a recorded message which advised him to hang up and that he would be called back. With his wife screaming in pain, my constituent and some helpers put her on a stretcher, loaded her into the back of a ute and took her to the nearby hospital. Is being taken to hospital in the back of a ute what the government meant by Victorians getting the medical help they need when they need it?
Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:16): Can I thank the member for Gippsland South for his question. As I understood from the honourable member’s question and the details that he provided, it would appear from the question that the matter relates to how ESTA and the 000 service dealt with and triaged—as they have been doing for many, many years now—that call based on the levels of demand that they were facing, knowing that what we have seen over the course of the global pandemic is a doubling of ESTA’s calls. I think what the honourable member was asking in his question was how this process is happening at the ESTA end of the process, as opposed to the Ambulance Victoria issues, because the honourable member has asked the Minister for Ambulance Services—me—as opposed to the Minister for Emergency Services, who is the minister responsible for ESTA.
Having said all of that, even though the honourable member has asked the wrong minister, I am more than happy to provide an answer in the context of what I understand to be the position of ESTA through the unbelievably high and increased levels of demand that it has seen over the course of the global pandemic, to the point where the calls it was receiving pre pandemic have been more than doubled. Pre pandemic it had got to the position of referring emergency calls—lights and sirens—to Ambulance Victoria. We had seen an 84.5 per cent rate—the highest ever achieved—of responses from ESTA to Ambulance Victoria. What we have subsequently seen is a global pandemic that has seen more than a doubling of the referrals to ambulance through our friends at ESTA. We have seen ESTA’s calls more than double. I am sure this particular call does not reflect this, but I am sure honourable members would be well aware that one in five calls to Ambulance Victoria through ESTA, once they are triaged, are not established as requiring lights and sirens. But in terms of how particular allocations of demand are dealt with, those are through established triage processes. In regard to this particular set of circumstances, I am not personally familiar with them, but should the honourable member provide me with further details, I will certainly work with ESTA to establish what the situation was.
Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (14:19): Minister, for the record, my constituent specifically asked to remain anonymous but wanted this question raised. Thankfully when a doctor at the local hospital called for an ambulance, it was available, sitting 300 metres away, and was there within minutes to transfer the patient to Latrobe Regional Hospital. My constituent and his wife have nothing but praise for the nurses, doctor and paramedics who assisted them, but they do blame the failure of the system and lack of government support for—
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER: Order! If the member for South Barwon, the Leader of The Nationals and the Leader of the House wish to have a conversation over the table, they might want to do so outside. The member for Gippsland South is entitled to ask a supplementary question.
Mr D O’BRIEN: My constituent and his wife have nothing but praise for the nurses, doctor and paramedics who assisted them, but they do blame the failure of the system and lack of government support for this experience. When will the government accept that situations like this are unacceptable? Country Victorians should get proper priority, not the second-class attention that this government affords them.
Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:20): I certainly welcome the member for Gippsland South’s recognition that Ambulance Victoria delivered a first-class service and indeed that Latrobe regional health delivered a first-class service. This would be the same regional health service that your lot privatised—that those opposite flogged off to the private sector. They had the keys thrown back at the taxpayer to say, ‘You run it, because we can’t turn a buck’. Of course they could not turn a buck, because privatising hospitals means you privatise care and you undermine the very thing that the honourable member for Gippsland South was talking about, being quality care.
Mr D O’Brien: On a point of order, Speaker, on the question of debating, my constituents do not want to debate the 1990s; they want an answer about the system now.
Mr FOLEY: On the point of order, Speaker, it was not the 1990s, mate, it was this century.
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Gippsland South has asked his question. The minister to come back to answering the question.
Mr FOLEY: Thank you, honourable Speaker. I join with the member for Gippsland South in calling out praise for the fantastic Ambulance Victoria services in Gippsland and the wonderful service delivered by Latrobe regional health, a public hospital backed by this government and doubled in its investment and size over the course of this Andrews Labor government.