HUNTER, Australia — A medic shortage and responders being delayed at hospital while delivering patients is hampering air medical responses, it has been claimed.
The Hunter Westpac rescue helicopter has been forced to wait up to nearly a half hour for paramedics to be disptached by the NSW Ambulance Service, which is nearly double the recommended response time, according to The Herald.
When the helicopter is delayed, others from Sydney or Wollongong have been sent instead, or the patient has been transported by road.
On numerous occasions, critically ill patients have had to be transported by road when they should have been medevac’d from the scene, according to Health Service union ambulance sub-branch president Peter Rumball.
Four occasions in April alone showed the helicopter being delayed while waiting for paramedics, and Rumball says that there have been 70 instances in the last six months.
But a NSW Ambulance spokesperson claimed that instances of delays getting paramedics to the helicopter base were “rare,” according to The Herald.
The spokesperson confirmed that there were only 28 helicopter-trained intensive care paramedics, two short of the agreed workforce.
He said training would be conducted this month to increase the number to 30.