Jennifer Pittorino
Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay municipalities have recorded improved ambulance response times for urgent care according to the latest Ambulance Victoria (AV) response statistics.
The latest statistics are for all cases between July 1 and September 30 this year.
Code one incidents, those which require urgent paramedic and hospital care and use lights and sirens, are aimed to be responded to within 15 minutes.
For those in Maribyrnong, the average response time for code one cases from July to September, was 15.04 minutes, an improvement on a 15.45 minute average in the previous quarter.
The statistics show 67.1 per cent of response were responded to within 15 minutes, improving on 61.9 per cent from April to June.
The average response time for patients requiring urgent care in Hobsons Bay in from July to September was 15.46 minutes, with 59.6 per cent of callouts having a response of less than 15 minutes.
In comparison to the last quarter, which had an average response rate of 16.53 minutes and only 54.0 per cent of cases responded to within 15 minutes.
Metropolitan regional and clinical operations director Narelle Capp said between July and September, despite the high demand ambulances arrived at ‘lights and sirens’ cases on average 41 seconds faster than the previous quarter in the Maribyrnong and one minute and seven seconds faster in the Hobsons Bay.
“Between July and September we attended 1264 Code 1 cases in the Maribyrnong Local Government Area (LGA) and 1218 in the Hobsons Bay LGA,” she said.
“We are proud of our hardworking paramedics and it’s great to see performance improving in Melbourne’s west following unprecedented pressures on the health system due to COVID-19.
“It is also great to see people in Maribyrnong and Hobsons Bay embracing the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) for non-urgent cases to avoid unnecessary trips to our emergency departments.”
