South Australian paramedics say a shortage of crews is leading to deaths and unnecessary suffering.
They will tell a parliamentary inquiry today the ambulance service is critically underfunded and overstretched and that they are worried about the safety of their own families if they need an ambulance.
"It's absolutely devastating and there are people that are dying out there right now," Ambulance Employees Association (AEA) general secretary Leah Watkins told the ABC.
Response times are getting longer, overtime is increasing, paramedics are missing breaks and being tasked for greater proportions of their shifts, the AEA submission to the Legislative Review Committee on SA Ambulance Service resourcing said.
The AEA said there were two recent incidents where patients had died while waiting for an ambulance, with crew shortages making more likely in the future.
Paramedic Jim Murchland said he had attended an incident where the patient died before he could arrive.
"As far as we could tell, [they] had actually drowned in their own vomit while waiting for an ambulance, which I don't believe should have happened," he said.
Mr Murchland said ambulances were constantly attending jobs, meaning they often can't get to high priority cases in time.
"If the ambulance in their area is already out … I know there is no-one going to them."
'Heartbreaking': Dispatchers unable to send urgently needed crews
Dispatcher Caitlin McDonald said she had watched the volume of ambulance calls and the length of wait times blow out in recent years.
"When I first started, [there were] two or three jobs on your screen and now [there are] 15 to 20 and all of your ambulances are tasked, there's no option, there's no wiggle room, there's no fat in the system," she said.
Ms McDonald said staff were finding it traumatic when they were unable to send crews to urgent cases.
"It's really hard to continue to watch people's family members wait and die because of our delays."
The South Australian Ambulance Service said it has just recruited more experienced paramedics and doubled its 2022 intake of interns.
"SAAS works hard to ensure ambulance availability and coverage and additional ambulance shifts have been created to provide a better match for our ambulance demand," it said in a statement.
The AEA said the main problem is that ambulances — unlike the rest of the health system — were not funded based on current and projected demand.
"The ambulance service needs to be funded for the work that it does. Currently, it's not," Ms Watkins said.
The state government has funded new paramedics and is using student paramedics and other ambulance staff to fill gaps during the pandemic.
"The Marshall government addressed these issues by announcing an additional 74 full-time-equivalent (FTE) ambulance officers in last year's state budget. Of this, 50 FTE have already commenced on SAAS rosters and are already making a difference," Health Minister Stephen Wade said in a statement.
Mr Wade said ambulance resources had been boosted as part of the government's response to COVID-19.
"We are doubling the paramedic intern intake for back-to-back years and have recruited more Triple-0 call takers," he said.
"We have also built a stand-by workforce of nearly 100 paramedic students to assist with non-urgent patient transport, allowing more ambulances to stay on the road and deliver the care needed in the community.
Mr Wade said the government would look at the AEA's submission and was open to changing how the ambulance service is funded.
"The Marshall Liberal government remains willing to provide further additional resources to the ambulance service, along with sensible industrial reforms to ensure those resources have maximum impact and industrial action is ceased," he said.
