Tragedy: Elderly man dies after five hours of waiting for ambulance in nursing home

An elderly South Australian man has died after being forced to wait five hours for an ambulance at his nursing home.

The death occurred on July 10, a month in which a record 5539 hours were lost in South Africa, despite the state Labor government promising at the 2022 election to tackle the problem.

This phenomenon occurs when ambulances are waiting in line at a hospital emergency department but cannot pick up patients because all the beds are occupied. This means there are fewer vehicles available to pick up other patients.

The call to pick up an elderly man was initially marked as priority 3 – response time 30 minutes – then raised to priority 2, meaning an ambulance was expected to arrive within 16 minutes.

His case was then upgraded to Priority 1 – expected to arrive within eight minutes.

Although the nearest ambulance station was just over 1km away, by the time paramedics arrived five hours later it was too late to save the man’s life.

The Ambulance Employees Association (AEA) said that on the night the man died, other patients were on the ward for 12, 11 and 9.5 hours.

AEA Secretary of State Leah Watkins said paramedics were “feeling like they were playing Russian roulette” as they were stuck in hospital car parks treating patients.

She added that paramedics often respond to emergency calls and wonder if the person will die before they can arrive.

“Our members are seriously concerned that we could once again be seeing a situation similar to that seen in early 2022 – delays in getting emergency cases into the community and delays in getting critically ill patients into hospital,” she told the Advertiser.

“It’s an absolute tragedy. That’s why we’re fighting so hard to get ambulances to hospitals as quickly as possible.”

Health Minister Chris Picton offered his “deepest condolences” to the man’s family.

“The matter has been referred to the coroner and I will ensure that the SA Ambulance Service and SA Health will co-operate fully with any investigation by the coroner,” he said in a statement.

Mr Picton added that the Government was “focused on improving ambulance response times” and said an increasing number of people with life-threatening conditions were being provided with rapid ambulance care.

However, Deputy Opposition Leader John Gardner disagreed, saying: “This is another tragic death that will shock many South Australians.”

“Our healthcare system is in crisis under Labour’s government – ​​a direct reflection of (Prime Minister) Peter Malinauskas’s unfulfilled promise to ‘fix’ the rise in cases.

“Under Labor, 5,539 hours were lost to ramping in July – a grim record. Peter Malinauskas must take responsibility and ‘fix’ ramping, as Labor promised before the state election, before we see more avoidable tragedies.”

The longest wait for a person in July was an 83-year-old woman who was stuck in the Royal Adelaide Hospital car park for 12.5 hours.

Mr Picton said the Labor Government “recognises that there is still a significant amount of investment that needs to be made to further improve response times”.