When Victorian retiree Mark Stephens was woken in the night by his wife, who was suffering the telltale signs of a heart attack, he knew she needed immediate medical help.
So rather than risk a lengthy wait for an ambulance to arrive at their home in Beechworth, in north-eastern Victoria, he took matters into his own hands.
"I thought, 'It's no good me ringing an ambulance now' because I knew it would take ages, so I raced her around to Beechworth Health and I think I was there in about three minutes with my foot flat," he said.
Mrs Stephens' condition was stabilised by staff at the Urgent Care Centre which, unlike an emergency department, was led by a team of nurses with support from on-call general practitioners and other emergency services.
But Mr Stephens still had to endure the wait for an ambulance he had hoped to avoid.
Moving closer to help
Last year's health scare was enough for the couple, who are in their 70s, to sell their Beechworth home and relocate to Wangaratta in a pre-emptive move to be closer to emergency health services.
"We said, 'Look this is crazy', so we sold our house and moved down to Wangaratta," Mr Stephens said.
"It's really disappointing. We are still very much involved in Beechworth and [have] lots of friends here and lots of friends in Wangaratta.
Ambulance Victoria data for January to March 2022 showed the average response time for Code One calls in the Indigo local government area took more than 24 minutes, while a dispatched ambulance arrived in less than 15 minutes in just 24 per cent of cases.
"There's people at our age who are just so disappointed about the ambulance times and very worried about the whole health system," Mr Stephens said.
Push for rural CFA to fill the void
The Stephens' move comes as a Country Fire Authority captain in a nearby town continues to agitate for his crew to help fill emergency medical response gaps in country communities to help alleviate pressure on the state's stressed ambulance service.
Kiewa CFA captain Aaron Wallace has lobbied for his brigade to be a trial site that offers emergency health care to local residents.
Mr Wallace said his response crews were well placed to provide a Level Two first aid response to life-threatening Priority Code Zero calls.
Most of his CFA members are trained in first aid and the station is stocked with life-saving equipment, such as defibrillators.
"Kiewa (Tangambalanga's) fire station might sit dormant 90 per cent of the year," he said.
"It's a state resource that can be used elsewhere as well through medical response through small communities."
Mr Wallace's sustained push to offer residents life-saving medical assistance while waiting for paramedics has the support of the local Liberal Benambra MP, Bill Tilley.
"We have no CERT team in Kiewa, but we have a group of community members that are willing to step up and provide those essential services to the Kiewa area," Mr Tilley said.
The CFA has trialled seven brigades that provide emergency medical response alongside Ambulance Victoria, but none of those are based outside of suburban Melbourne.
The initiative will likely be rolled out to all co-located CFA fire stations, which included both career and volunteer fighters, but meant many smaller rural and regional centres would miss out.
The CFA has told the ABC that an announcement on the initiative was imminent.
