Seventy-five year-old Margot Whelan waited one hour for an ambulance to arrive as she bled from a cut on her head after a fall at her Traralgon home last month.
On the night of 26 May, the well-known Latrobe Valley caterer was making cheesecakes for a next-day luncheon and after collecting cream from an outdoor fridge, tripped up a step.
Margot’s daughter Margaret Bell was helping her mum out that evening.
“I called out and she didn’t answer me and, yeah she was out cold,” Margaret said.
“I just panicked and rushed over and as soon as I touched her and said ‘are you alright?’, she sort of started coming to.
“And that’s when I saw she was bleeding.”
Margaret called to her father Rupert Whelan inside the house to phone Triple Zero. She put pressure on her mother’s wound with tea towels.
She said the family was told an ambulance would be there soon and to keep pressure on the cut.
After 15 minutes, the family telephoned again and were told an ambulance would be there soon.
“I was completely soaked. The towels were getting soaked. I’ve never seen so much blood,” Margot said.
When asked what was going through her mind at that time, Margot replied “bloody hell, I’ve got to finish this cheesecake”.
“I had a funeral at lunchtime the next day and I had a luncheon to get out,” Margot said.
“I thought ‘all these people are depending on me’.”
She said she went into shock.
After another 15 minutes, Margot’s family again phoned for an ambulance.
“They said ‘look, there’s none in the area, there’s one coming from Heyfield in transit at the moment and it’ll be here within 20 to 30 minutes’,” Margaret said.
Margaret and Rupert, who had been unable to move Margot inside, phoned Margaret’s husband Bruce, who lifted Margot off the ground and into the house. Shortly after, the ambulance arrived.
“They were community ambulance officers, nice, efficient, couldn’t have faulted them,” Margaret said.
Margot was taken to Latrobe Regional Hospital.
discharged with cuts and bruising.
Despite feeling unwell, Margot, determined to fulfil her duties, insisted on finishing the cheesecakes the next morning.
“You either have to be dead or get on with it,” Margot said.
“People depend on you.”
She said while there was “no harm done” she feared for more senior members of the community who may have to endure a similar wait in the same situation.
“I’d like to think the ambulance would be here within half an hour,” Margot said.
Margaret said had the family been told from the first emergency phonecall that an ambulance would take so long, they would have made an earlier attempt to contact her husband Bruce for help to move Margot and potentially transport her to hospital themselves.
Member for Morwell Russell Northe said he understood there was just one ambulance to cover the whole township of Traralgon.
“With a population of 28,000, I think most people would agree that’s not sufficient in a growing community,” Mr Northe said.
“Everybody recognises our paramedics do a magnificent job and we want to ensure not only are our local paramedics supported, but our local community as well.
“I have written to the Minister for Health calling for additional resources on our community.”
Ambulance Victoria’s general manager of emergency operations Anthony Carlyon said the service had to prioritise cases based on clinical need to ensure the most critical and urgent cases are attended first.
“Using the information provided, our communications centre assessed this call and it was deemed suitable for an ambulance to be dispatched under normal driving conditions,” he said.
“We understand it can at times be frustrating and uncomfortable to wait for an ambulance.
“We dispatched the nearest available ambulance to this case, while the Triple Zero caller kept us informed of the patient’s condition with subsequent phone calls to Triple Zero.”
Ambulance Victoria did not provide information about how many ambulances serviced the local area.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Jill Hennessy said the government was upgrading and rebuilding the Traralgon ambulance station and the most recent performance data for the Latrobe local government area showed sustained improvement in ambulance responses.
“For quarter three, 2015/16 there was an average Code 1 response time of 14 minutes and 36 seconds – a 43-second improvement compared to the same period last year,” the spokesperson said.
“In our recent budget, we invested $144 million in our ambulance services – including a $60 million Response Rescue Fund – to provide better, faster responses and make sure our ambulances are responding to the right patient, at the right time, with the right care.
“While we are beginning to see results, we know we have more work to do to turn around four years of crisis and neglect, and we will continue to invest in our ambulance system to repair this damage.”
She had sustained cuts and bruising and returned home after a few hours.
Despite feeling unwell, Margot, determined to fulfil her duties, insisted on finishing the cheesecakes the next morning.
“You either have to be dead or get on with it,” Margot said.
“People depend on you.”
She said although there was “no harm done” she feared for more senior members of the community who may have to endure a similar wait in the same situation.
“I’d like to think the ambulance would be here within half an hour,” Margot said.
Margaret said had the family been told from the first emergency phonecall that an ambulance would take so long, they would have made an earlier attempt to contact her husband Bruce for help to move Margot and potentially transport her to hospital themselves.
Member for Morwell Russell Northe said he understood there was just one ambulance to cover the whole township of Traralgon.
“With a population of 28,000, I think most people would agree that’s not sufficient in a growing community,” Mr Northe said.
“Everybody recognises our paramedics do a magnificent job and we want to ensure not only are our local paramedics supported, but our local community as well.
“I have written to the Minister for Health calling for additional resources in our community.”
Ambulance Victoria’s general manager of emergency operations Anthony Carlyon said the service had to prioritise cases based on clinical need to ensure the most critical and urgent cases were attended first.
“Using the information provided, our communications centre assessed this call and it was deemed suitable for an ambulance to be dispatched under normal driving conditions,” he said.
“We understand it can at times be frustrating and uncomfortable to wait for an ambulance.
“We dispatched the nearest available ambulance to this case, while the Triple Zero caller kept us informed of the patient’s condition with subsequent phone calls to Triple Zero.”
Ambulance Victoria did not provide information about how many ambulances serviced the area.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Jill Hennessy said the government was upgrading and rebuilding the Traralgon ambulance station and the most recent performance data for the Latrobe local government area showed sustained improvement in ambulance responses.
“For quarter three, 2015/16 there was an average Code 1 response time of 14 minutes and 36 seconds – a 43-second improvement compared to the same period last year,” the spokesperson said.
“In our recent budget, we invested $144 million in our ambulance services – including a $60 million Response Rescue Fund – to provide better, faster responses and make sure our ambulances are responding to the right patient, at the right time, with the right care.
“While we are beginning to see results, we know we have more work to do to turn around four years of crisis and neglect, and we will continue to invest in our ambulance system to repair this damage.”
