“The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to have an unprecedented impact on health systems across Australia,” the spokesperson said.
“Our paramedics and patient transport workers are working extremely hard to manage the increasing demand while prioritising care to the sickest Victorians.
“Last night, Ambulance Victoria experienced a major impact on normal business delivery in the metropolitan region which resulted in longer wait times than usual for patients. This increased caseload has now eased.
“Last night, Ambulance Victoria experienced a major impact on normal business delivery.”
– Ambulance Victoria spokesperson
“Our priority is to ensure we have adequate resources for code one patients who require a lights and sirens urgent response. These patients are categorised as the sickest Victorians who require urgent life-saving care.”
Ambulance Union acting general secretary Olga Bartasek said “it was pretty dire for a code red to be alerted”.
“Certainly, code red is only ever reserved for … things like thunderstorm asthma or the bushfires,” she told 3AW.
“Certainly there’s some staff that are being furloughed because of Omicron and also a huge demand in cases that are coming in.
“It’s a bit of COVID as well as the fact that there’s just an extraordinary demand on the ambulance service for other general cases.”
Ms Bartasek said some non-emergency patient transport workers were dispatched to deal with serious cases overnight.
Earlier, an Ambulance Victoria spokesperson urged people to make sure their medications were up to date, and thanked the community who “helped us resolve this matter overnight”.
Code red or orange protocols – where people may be directed to take taxis to hospital and non-emergency vehicles can be used for emergency events – are typically used for one-off events such as bushfires or thunderstorm asthma but are now commonly being used to meet high demand unrelated to emergency incidents.
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COVID’s strain on health system prompts Ambulance Victoria ‘code red’ call
Source: Philippines Alive
