February 9, 2022

Motion and debate

I spoke to an Opposition motion requesting an audit of the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority’s management and operations

Georgie CROZIER MP (South Eastern Metropolitan) 10:00:

That this house:

(1) expresses its serious concern at the:

(a) inadequate operation of the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority’s (ESTA) 000 service and the failure of ESTA to maintain acceptable response times;

(b) worrying number of cases where lives have been put at risk by the extraordinary time delays in responding to calls in country Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne;

(c) failure to promptly dispatch an ambulance in a timely way;

(d) cases that have come to public notice where lives have been lost through what appears to be delayed emergency services dispatch;

(e) resources provided by the government to ESTA and Ambulance Victoria and the consequent delays in response times; and—

this is an important part of the motion—

(2) respectfully requests that the Auditor-General examine the operation and management of ESTA and the interaction between ESTA and Ambulance Victoria.

Tania MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (10:51):

I rise to speak on the Opposition motion (699) requesting that the Auditor-General examine the operation and management of the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority and the interaction between ESTA and Ambulance Victoria. I would like to thank Ms (Georgie) Crozier (South EasternMetropolitan) for bringing this motion to the Parliament.

At the outset I would like to acknowledge ESTA workers, paramedics, and all our emergency services workers who work tirelessly, often in extremely traumatic situations. Their work and dedication is not being questioned here whatsoever. Just to reiterate, I personally would like to thank them for their ongoing diligence and commitment.

I have almost lost count of how many times I have raised issues relating to ambulance response times in Parliament over the past three years. Residents across my electorate contact me regularly with reports of long delays, hospital ramping and associated issues. I have brought to Parliament their frustrations that ESTA continues to use static scripts that do not inform residents how along they might have to wait for an ambulance and that they offer little direction or advice by way of alternatives. I have met with Ambulance Victoria and had these discussions several times. They are something that Ambulance Victoria has said they will give consideration to—those scripts.

But before COVID hit our regional services they were already under strain, and most regions could not be confident that a code 1 event would be responded to within the 15-minute benchmark. Across Northern Victoria’s 27 local government areas paramedics attended 16 995 callouts to code 1 emergencies in the 12 months to 31 December. That in itself is an enormous strain on those very systems, on our paramedics, on the ESTA call service. This was up 9.6 per cent on the previous years, which highlights the extremely large numbers that we are seeing. I would also like to in fact reiterate something that Ms Terpstra said: ‘If it is not an emergency, please do not call 000, call Nurse-on-Call’. I have actually asked my staff to make sure that is on my newsletters, because I think it is important to continue to get that message across: ‘If it is not an emergency, do not call 000’.

It was about a year ago that it took almost 18 minutes on average for an ambulance to arrive at a code 1 emergency callout in Northern Victoria. Now that average response time has expanded to 19 minutes 26 seconds. Now, 1 minute and 26 seconds probably does not sound like a lot. However, if you are having a heart attack or it is an absolute emergency, that time frame can be the difference, unfortunately, between life and death. I feel for our local paramedics and for the ESTA workers, and I have no doubt that they are working under constant pressure. They are often called on to do overtime and to work extra shifts. The public scrutiny does not make it easy and the work is tough. I will just reiterate: this is not a condemnation of those workers at all. This is looking at a way in which we can fix this problem.

For people trying to get through to ESTA, such as the case recently where a call went unanswered for 33 minutes—another person with chest pains waited 14 minutes for someone to pick up the phone—their panic, pain and fear can hardly be imagined. These issues are being reported, unfortunately, nearly every week.

It gives me no pleasure to give you a case study I was told about to illustrate this point. Sunday (February 6, 2022) was a beautiful day to enjoy boating up at Lake Buffalo, which is in my electorate of Northern Victoria. In thinking about this landscape, it is important to note here that there is no internet or phone reception outside of emergency calls. This case reported to me was of a young adult who had severe sunstroke. After about an hour of helpful bystanders trying to treat this person, the person’s condition progressed to hallucinations and vomiting as well as periodically passing out. At this point the helpers called an ambulance. Their call was answered. The timing of that does not appear to be too much of an issue. They were told by ESTA not to move the patient and that an ambulance would be dispatched, but they were not told how long it would take or what alternatives they could pursue. I believe there was no recommendation to call Nurse-on-Call, and no suggestion to transport them to the hospital that was 15 minutes away. They were told to stay put and wait. The phone call ended, and wait they did.

Another bystander suggested they put the person in the car and take them to the local hospital, knowing that an ambulance would be a long time coming. The people who took responsibility for this person did not take that advice on the basis that ESTA had told them not to move the person. In the end, about two hours into the incident, some local nurses walked past and thankfully offered their assistance. In the meantime, the people trying to help this person had been back on the phone to ESTA, frantic because the patient’s condition had deteriorated significantly, and they were in and out of consciousness. The nurses’ advice to these people was the same as that given by the bystander more than an hour earlier. They basically said, ‘You won’t get an ambulance out here’ and recommended they take the person to hospital themselves. Thankfully that local advice was heeded. The person was treated at the local hospital and is now recovering, but only when the nurses suggested that they be driven to hospital did the ESTA workers suggest that would be okay and cancel the ambulance.

I think it can also be difficult for the ESTA call-takers to know and understand the topography that these patients and the paramedics are working with. None of these people were trying to treat this person; that is the point of calling emergency services. The call at the start probably was not a code 1, but the person was clearly very unwell and needed treatment. It makes me wonder why, in a fairly remote area with no mobile phone reception and limited ambulance resources, they were not given different options or terms of advice. These people did not even know what Nurse-on-Call is; they had not heard of it. There was not even Dr Google available because there was no internet connection. All they had was ESTA’s advice. So I would also encourage community members, when they are going into those areas where there is no internet connection, to a plan if something does happen. (Lake Buffalo) is an enormous lake where people go waterskiing all the time. Have a plan.

For a life-saving service where every minute counts, every day counts in terms of fixing this system. I recognise the questions put to the minister yesterday and her commitment to improvements at ESTA, including more resources and more support. The Auditor-General provides a very valuable service to our public agencies, to our Parliament and to our state, and we feel this referral is appropriate given the challenges being faced by ESTA and the ambulance service. For a service that is taking up to 4000 calls a day, it is extremely important. We recognise that there is a review being run by former Victoria Police chief commissioner Mr Graham Ashton, and I hope the outcomes of that review will be made public and deliver some immediate solutions to the government. The government should also welcome a review by the Auditor-General. Every step we take towards understanding the issues and how the system can be improved will help protect the lives of our residents.

I will leave my contribution there, but I commit to keep bringing the issues to the government and to working with them, with Ambulance Victoria and with ESTA on the needs of Northern Victoria and what we can do to make improvements. There is no doubt here that lives depend on it.

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Link image: Stock and Land