Family members of an Adelaide man who died after waiting 10 hours for an ambulance have spoken out for the first time. The man, whose identity has been revealed as Eddie, died during an evening of significant ambulance ramping across metropolitan Adelaide hospitals.
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00:00 54 year old Adelaide man Eddie died on December 27 during what the SA Ambulance Union described
00:08 as an evening of significant ramping across metropolitan Adelaide hospitals.
00:13 Eddie called triple zero complaining of abdominal pain and vomiting.
00:16 He was initially categorised as an urgent priority 5 case which meant an ambulance was
00:21 supposed to arrive within one hour.
00:23 When his condition deteriorated he was upgraded to a priority 1 case.
00:28 Ambulances arrived within 4 minutes but by that stage he'd been waiting for an ambulance
00:32 for more than 10 hours since his first call.
00:34 When ambulances arrived he had died.
00:37 Eddie's family, his auntie Brenda and uncle Steve spoke to media today.
00:42 They described Eddie as a gentle giant and said they were still coming to terms with
00:45 his death.
00:46 He didn't have a voice.
00:49 He couldn't tell anybody please get the ambulance to me.
00:53 I need it desperately.
00:55 Mr Malinowski you promised South Australia that you were going to fix the ramping.
01:01 You have failed.
01:03 Eddie's another statistic and we want to be here today to make somebody responsible and
01:10 someone needs to step up the mark and take account for what you've done.
01:15 We do not want another family to go through what we've gone through.
01:19 Eddie's family called on the South Australian Labor Government to urgently act on its promise
01:23 to fix the ramping crisis.
01:25 They said they didn't want another family to have to go through what they've been through.
01:29 In a statement a South Australian government spokesperson said senior SA Ambulance staff
01:33 had spoken to Eddie's mother over the phone on Monday and offered her an in-person meeting
01:38 with people who were reviewing Eddie's death.
01:41 They said the South Australian Ambulance Service is following up again with Eddie's mother
01:44 today to try and confirm a time for this meeting.
01:48 Fixed ramping is on the rise in South Australia.
01:50 In November a record 4,285 hours were lost to ramping alone.
01:56 That number dropped to just under 3,600 hours in December.
02:00 But it's still higher than when Labor came to office in March 2022.
02:04 The State Government says it is taking action to fix ramping.
02:08 It says it's increasing the number of hospital beds with another 150 new beds to come online
02:13 by the end of this year.
02:14 It says it's also increasing the number of doctors, nurses and clinicians in South Australian
02:19 hospitals.
02:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]