Western suburbs voters will head into next month’s state election in the dark on a range of issues as crucial police, fire and ambulance statistics are withheld.
The decision to hold back data to avoid it being politicised has been criticised for not allowing voters to scrutinise the government’s performance.
The government has come under fire for longer ambulance response times, ambulances ‘ramping’ outside full emergency departments, and hospitals on ‘bypass’ diverting ambulances away.
Opposition health spokesman Gavin Jennings said Health Minister David Davis had failed to comply with a direction of Parliament to provide local ambulance response times.
He said that at one stage over a 24-hour period in September every hospital in the north and west of Melbourne was on bypass.
Western Health’s executive director of operations, Russell Harrison, said western suburbs hospitals had suffered a shortage of beds recently for a number of reasons, including a major gastro outbreak.
“This has led to long delays for some patients in emergency departments as we seek to free up space in various wards,” he said. “Western Health would like to apologise to patients who experienced extended waiting times.”
Williamstown MP Wade Noonan said the recent Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority annual report showed only 77.1 per cent of ambulances were despatched within the benchmark time of 150 seconds – well below the 90 per cent target.
“Every second counts in an emergency, but all we have seen under [Premier] Denis Napthine is our ambulance service lurch from one crisis to the next.”
A spokesman for Mr Davis said it was normal for hospitals to go on bypass from time to time.
“Hospital bypass is used only for non-critical cases,” he said. “All critical cases are taken directly to the closest hospital.”
