Review finds hospital ramping a major contributor to man's death
An investigation has found hospital ramping was a major contributor to the death of an Adelaide man who was left waiting ten hours for an ambulance. The state government has apologised to the man's family and has promised to implement all seven of the report's recommendations to help prevent future tragedies.
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00:00 54 year old Eddie was living in disability care when he died two days after Christmas.
00:08 He waited 10 hours for an ambulance and never made it to a hospital.
00:13 The pressure in terms of ambulance and ramping was a significant contribution to the delays
00:20 experienced here.
00:23 The probe found crews were ramped for a total of 416 hours in the 48 hour period around
00:29 Eddie's death.
00:30 It also found there were delays in callbacks due to a higher volume of triple zero calls.
00:36 To the family involved we again offer our sincere condolences and apologies.
00:41 Among the review's seven recommendations that the ambulance service identify cases of greatest
00:46 risk and prioritise callbacks during high periods of demand as well as review responses
00:52 to vulnerable patients who rely on a second party for communication.
00:57 These recommendations are absolutely achievable.
01:00 They are excellent improvements that we can make.
01:03 Are they going to be implemented in six weeks, six months, six years?
01:07 We don't know.
01:08 The ABC last month revealed that nearly 100 patients have died while waiting for delayed
01:13 ambulances since Labor took office with a promise to fix the ramping crisis.
01:18 The ABC has not been told what caused the patients deaths or to what extent they were
01:23 impacted by the delays.
01:25 The Health Minister concedes there's more work to do and says 150 more beds will become
01:30 available this year.
01:32 We need more capacity in our hospitals to make sure that we can get more patients inside
01:38 of our hospitals.
01:39 Eddie is at the forefront of our minds.
01:42 He's the person we're talking about but sadly there are others too.
01:46 The state's coroner is still investigating the cause of Eddie's death.
01:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]