Tuesday, 18 March 2025

Ambulance services

Kim WELLS (Rowville) (13:16): I want to address my members statement by condemning the Allan Labor government for its continued failures in managing Victoria’s troubled ambulance services. The unacceptable ongoing mismanagement of our ambulance services is seeing Victorians’ lives being placed in danger every single day. Victorians have simply had enough.

One such angry Victorian is a deeply concerned constituent of mine in Rowville whose experiences have been so troubling that they recently resorted to making a submission to the current parliamentary committee inquiry into Ambulance Victoria to highlight their concerns. Over the past year my constituent, with a chronic life-threatening condition, has experienced a number of emergency events requiring an ambulance. However, each time a call was made my constituent was advised an ambulance was not available and they would have to make their own way to hospital. On the first occasion, Ambulance Victoria did arrange taxi transport. However, subsequent calls for assistance were met with a disappointing and totally unacceptable response of ‘Call us back if your situation gets worse.’

My constituent is not unreasonable and understands that Ambulance Victoria must triage and prioritise all calls. However, when someone has a chronic life-threatening condition and has had an emergency event that has left them in severe pain, it is entirely reasonable for them to expect an emergency ambulance response, not the offer of a taxi or being told to make their own way to hospital. Victoria simply deserves better.