Under strain:The NSW Ambulance network.Credit:Kate Geraghty
A senior operational manager at NSW Ambulance,who spoke on the condition of anonymity,said there are significant “wait times in offloading ambulances” at public hospital emergency departments,causing up to four-hour response delays to triple zero calls.
“Paramedics are also catching COVID-19 and needing to take extended periods of time off work,” the manager said.
Screenshots of NSW Ambulance’s control centre status board,seen by theHerald,show that on Wednesday the average response time for P1,or potentially life-threatening cases,was 58 minutes across Sydney metropolitan area.
On Wednesday,only 20 ambulances were available across the network,which is about eleven per cent of total operational capacity.
P1 category cases include unconscious patients,people having an acute heart attack or choking.
Health Services Union NSW ambulance divisional secretary Stuart Hatter said the ambulance network had reached “status 2” mode at least twice this week,meaning there was likely more emergency triple zero responses than there were available crews.
Mr Hatter said that the network had also experienced record calls into the Sydney control centre over the weekend.