A woman in her late 70s with a broken hip lay in the dark on a concrete driveway in Altona for more than an hour while she waited for an ambulance.
Paramedic Dave Hammond said the woman fell over in Rayner Street about 7.40pm on September 22.
“There was no ambulance available until almost 90 minutes later,” he said.
“Several people had to comfort her and keep her warm until we were despatched from Laverton at about 8.50pm. We arrived 13 minutes later.
“She was distressed and in a lot of pain.”
Mr Hammond said the woman, who was categorised as a code two case, waited three times longer than she should have under the state government target time of 25 minutes.
Mr Hammond said that because of an ambulance bypass, paramedics had to take the woman to the city instead of Western Hospital at Footscray.
The ambulance was then ramped for more than an hour at Royal Melbourne Hospital.
“It’s not uncommon to spend more than half your 10-hour day or 14-hour night shift ramped at hospitals,” Mr Hammond said. “It’s becoming the norm.”
He said that about midnight on the night in question more than 25 cases had backed up with no ambulance available for despatch.
Ambulance Victoria regional manager Simon Thomson said priority was given to the sickest patients.
“All calls for ambulance are assessed on their severity, with paramedics responding to life-threatening emergencies and the sickest patients first,” he said.
“An ambulance was despatched [to the woman] but diverted to a higher priority patient and the case was reviewed by experienced paramedics in our communications centre.
“A second ambulance arrived at 9.02pm and took the woman to hospital.”
