The delays that the community are experiencing when they dial triple zero and call for an ambulance were completely predictable and preventable.

Over many years at the bargaining table with the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) we, alongside the Communication Workers Union who represent police call-takers and the United Firefighters Union who represent fire call-takers have been calling for the introduction of “safe minimum staffing” levels to be embedded in the ESTA enterprise agreement.

Victorians have experienced delays while waiting for ambulances after making triple-zero calls.Credit:Scott McNaughton

This has been refused by ESTA and successive governments every time it has been raised. Governments don’t like clauses that mandate staffing levels. But if it had been agreed to, the community would have a very different experience when they call triple zero in an emergency.

In May 2021, we started to see cases where people had waited up to two minutes before an ambulance call-taker answered. At the time, a two-minute delay was unheard of. Previously the longest delays our members would tell us about were 30 seconds and that was rare. But we started to hear of up to 20 triple-zero callers waiting in a queue for their call to be answered for up to two minutes.

It takes six months to properly train an ESTA call-taker. It is very challenging and unforgiving work. They need to be properly mentored and supervised before they can safely and efficiently talk a panicked caller through performing CPR on a relative or clearing the airway of a newborn baby, all while gathering the relevant details to provide to paramedics.

It is simply not possible to snap your fingers and suddenly advertise and recruit call-takers after the crisis hits. ESTA needs to consistently increase and maintain call-taker numbers as soon as the slightest delays begin. Not react to a preventable crisis with a massive repair package.

What “safe minimum staffing” clauses in an EBA would have done is created trigger points that required an immediate increase in staff that ensure these calls were answered in time and the callers were not left waiting. This would have kicked in long before delays hit the two-minute mark and seen fully trained call-takers on the phones in time for the Omicron wave.

That didn’t happen and now we regularly have less than 10 ambulance call-takers for the entire state, and we have had 20-30 calls waiting in the queue for up to 39 minutes.

Once we had clear evidence hitting the media with patients waiting half an hour for a call to be answered, the previous CEO Marty Smyth finally acknowledged the delays. But that was in October when we were already heading towards the Delta peak. Way too late to be able to recruit and train new triple zero operators in time for Delta let alone the Omicron wave.

ESTA blamed the pandemic which is just wrong. Yes, the pandemic has been a factor. But it is a factor that health services and Ambulance Victoria started planning for at the beginning of 2020.

There have been some errors, it was clumsy at times, but the work around preparing the health system for a peak started very early and ahead of increased workload. ESTA only just started this work in the lead-up to the peak and it was way too late. They have missed the pandemic peak completely.

Sadly, there will be many more harrowing stories that will emerge from this failure. Our paramedic members regularly arrive at time-critical cases where bystanders are furious at the long wait for their call to be answered.

This includes cases where the crews were at their branch and available to respond very quickly had they been dispatched. They have arrived at patients in cardiac arrest where the patient died, but may have been able to be saved if the call had been taken in time.

Let’s not forget the hardworking call-takers themselves who are getting abused by frustrated callers and it isn’t their fault. They are taking the anger that should be aimed at the organisation.

Can you imagine answering a triple zero call where a relative of a dying person has been on hold for 20 minutes? The families are right to be angry. But our call-takers are the ones who cop it after it was them who called for more staff.

Danny Hill is state secretary of the Victorian Ambulance Union.

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