NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has admitted the state's ambulance commissioner intervened and organised for his sick wife to be transported to hospital last month.
Ahead of Saturday's state election, Mr Perrottet has been quizzed regarding who made the call out for an ambulance to collect his wife Helen, on February 14.
He insisted he did not seek preferential treatment when he phoned Health Minister Brad Hazzard, who he said was coincidentally in the same room with senior medical specialists, including NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan.
"I spoke to Brad and said 'I'm thinking of going to the physio, I'm not sure if we need to see a GP, or alternatively, go to hospital'," Mr Perrottet said today.
"Brad said that sounds like it could be spinal injury so you should be careful, he just happened at that time to be with the head of NSW Ambulance and a senior medical specialist.
"The advice I've received ... since this information has come to light, the head of NSW Ambulance had categorised it as a low order priority and arranged an ambulance to come out.
Mr Perrottet said the ambulance took about 40 to 50 minutes to arrive following that phone call.
"Never at all did I seek to get any treatment ahead of anyone else," he said.
His only concern was for his wife who had returned from the gym crying, saying she couldn't move, and was paralysed in bed, he said.
A spokesperson for NSW Ambulance said Mr Perrottet did not ask Dr Morgan to intervene.
"Dr Morgan asked some clinical questions and recommended that an ambulance be sent, as in his view it was an injury that needed to be properly assessed in an emergency department but did not require a lights and siren response from NSW Ambulance," the spokesperson said.
"No request was made to Dr Morgan to call an ambulance or to prioritise the response over other higher priority emergencies at any time."
Thousands of paramedics this week launched industrial action, leaving patients waiting to be triaged, to respond to emergency calls.
The move defies health department rules, but paramedics say emergency departments are clogged and hospital ramping remains a critical issues.
They are calling for better pay and more funding for services.
Mr Perrottet last week said a 3 per cent wage cap for public servants was "responsible".
"If public servants find savings above that, then they are able to get an additional pay rise," he said.
Last year, thousands of teachers, nurses and transport workers across the state took industrial action for months in a row over "unsustainable" pay and workloads.
After much pressure to lift the 2.5 per cent wage cap, the NSW government agreed to give all public sector workers a 3 per cent increase in 2022-23 and 2023-2024.
The premier last night was asked about his phone call to Mr Hazzard.
"I certainly didn't ask for any favours in relation to that ... they said 'you should go home' and an ambulance was called out in the ordinary course," the premier told Sky News last night.
A photograph posted on Mr Perrottet's Facebook page from February 14 shows his wife in a hospital bed.
Gerard Hayes, secretary of the Health Services Union of NSW, said staff were exacerbated by the pressures the hospital was under, including "choke points," and "competing interests".
"Paramedics are doing 14-hour shifts, they're exhausted. They are really keen to be able to look after people," he said.
"And yet they're standing in an emergency department, or outside an emergency department with a patient who's got maybe a knee injury or an ankle injury, and maybe hear a call for a car accident or a cardiac arrest.
"Their frustration level is so high now they're going to leave those patients in the emergency department and respond to the potentially very critical matters."
Some 1,300 senior doctors signed an open letter — with the doctors union — sent to the premier on Monday, saying workplace reforms were urgently needed to stop specialised staff leaving the profession.
"Public hospital doctors' pay and conditions have stagnated for the last 10 years under the NSW government's 2.5 per cent wage cap, and they are now the least competitive across all of mainland Australia," the letter read.
President of the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation, Tony Sara, said public hospitals were operating in crisis mode, with blown-out wait times, and patients put at risk due to understaffing.
