The family of a Perth man who died after waiting more than two hours for an ambulance have broken their silence after feeling St John Ambulance tried to “sweep the tragedy under the rug”.
The 85-year-old Bellevue man, who the family does not wish to identify, died on May 15 after five calls with the emergency service, three of those initiated by his increasingly desperate wife.
The Bellevue man died on May 15 after waiting more than two hours for an ambulance.
He was the second West Australian to die waiting for paramedics that day after Georgina Wild, 80, died from a heart attack 2½ hours after ringing triple-zero.
Triple-zero call transcripts obtained by Nine News Perth from the Bellevue death revealed the grandfather’s wife of 60 years initially told the call operator her husband was experiencing “terrible pain” in his lower abdomen, and needed to be transferred to hospital.
He was triaged as a priority three, which requires paramedics to arrive within an hour.
St John’s triage team then called back twice to explain the service was busy and struggling to assign him an ambulance, instead suggesting he go to the emergency department or chemist himself.
The elderly man said he and his wife found it “hard work” getting around, and that he used a walking stick and frame. He was then told to “sit tight” and wait for an ambulance.
An hour and a half after the initial call and two welfare calls, the man’s wife called triple zero again.
“Look, I rang before and they said they were very busy, I realise this, but my husband’s so distressed, I can’t get him up or anything … he’s in agony … I don’t know what to do,” she said.
The operator apologised for the delay and said to call back again if anything changes. The wife responded, “It’s changed in the last hour, it’s got a lot worse in the last hour”, but still the man was not elevated to a higher priority.
Thirty minutes later the wife called triple zero again: “Um, I’ve been ringing. I think my husband’s died”.
Transcript from third triple-zero call, 30 minutes before cardiac arrest
Triage: We’re struggling to find teams to get to you at the moment. I know you’re struggling to think about getting alternate transport, is there any other transport you could consider just to get you up the road?
Patient: I don’t think I’d be able to walk that far.
Triage: yeah, yeah.
Patient: I won’t be able to walk to the car, I’m in so much pain.
Triage: Alright, well sit tight, we’ll have a team round as soon as we can, we just can’t, we can’t promise a time of arrival. It’s really cranking up to be a really big day, so you know, we just don’t have, haven’t go the logistics at the moment.
Patient: OK.
Triage: OK, call back, call back triple zero if there’s any change.
Patient: Thank you.
The operator attempted to assist the wife to give him CPR, but she was too frail to get him onto his back, and instead went next door for help. She can be heard telling her neighbour as he rushed in that she called an ambulance three hours ago. Paramedics arrived minutes later.
The man’s granddaughter, Casey, believed if he had been re-triaged after her grandmother’s second call when she told the operator her husband was in agony and couldn’t move, he might still be alive.
She is speaking out on behalf of the family after an internal review of the incident failed to reassure them the same tragedy wouldn’t happen to another family.
“I think there were clear signs – if you’re in pain all over and you can’t move, you shouldn’t be a low-priority call, particularly at 85, you shouldn’t have to wait,” she said.
“It’s hard as a family when you lose a loved one, any loss of life is really hard, but when it’s a circumstance like this and you read what actually took place, that’s something that will be really hard to get over.”
In a leaked copy of the review into the man’s death, St John Ambulance admitted a number of failings including its inability to meet the demand for priority-three patients, the failure to re-triage the man when his condition worsened, staff shortages and having no process in place to contact family members when an ambulance was not available.
It also acknowledged the language spoken to the man and his wife falsely led them to believe an ambulance response was forthcoming.
“There was a significant lack of ambulance resourcing in the metropolitan area at the time of the call, and no other pathways for alternative resources to attend this patient,” the report read.
“This led to the patient waiting significantly longer than he should have for an ambulance response and deteriorating eventually into cardiac arrest.”
At the time, WA had nearly 90,000 COVID-19 cases, with the number of people in isolation impacting essential services.
Since the death, St John has implemented a number of measures to improve service delivery including outsourcing paramedic driver roles to firefighters when short-staffed, and offering to call a person’s next of kin when an ambulance is going to be delayed.
The review also recommended a new escalation policy for patients concerned about deterioration while waiting for an ambulance. The timeline for completion of the new policy is December, however Casey said it was a simple change which should be implemented as soon as possible.
Her family is calling for the state government to intervene and make a commitment to change, similar to the public promises made to Georgina Wild’s family after her son expressed his concerns publicly in the media.
“Both situations are devastating for both families, and nobody should experience a blown-out wait time like that and then – post that – OK, well what are we going to do about it?” she said.
“And what change is going to happen as a result of that? Don’t try and sweep it under the rug because we were quiet, who else is out there who is not being vocal about their experience?”
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said her thoughts and condolences were with the man’s family and that the state government was waiting for the findings of the St John investigation into his passing.
The report was completed on June 24.
The family’s decision to speak publicly comes on St John chief executive Michelle Fyfe’s last day in the top job after resigning amid heavy scrutiny.
Ambulance figures for Monday revealed 73.2 per cent of priority-one jobs were attended on time, while 51.6 per cent of priority two jobs, and 61.5 per cent of priority three jobs were attended within the timeframe.
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