WA Premier Mark McGowan has apologised to the family of a woman who died waiting more than two hours for an ambulance, suggesting St John's could have requested the support of the Department of Fire and Emergency Services.
Georgina Wild died of a heart attack in the early hours of Sunday morning.
She had called triple zero about 2:30am complaining of chest pains and her call was flagged with St John Ambulance as priority 1, meaning an ambulance should arrive within 15 minutes.
It's understood St John checked on Ms Wild's welfare by phone twice, at 3:00am and again at 3:30am, advising her no ambulance was available yet.
She did not answer a third welfare check call at 4:00am when a call centre worker left a message on her answering machine.
"Hi Georgina, it's Daniel from St John Ambulance call centre here just calling to check in," it said.
COVID impacted ambulance staffing
Mr McGowan said despite ambulance staffing levels being down 40 per cent at the time of Ms Wild's call because of COVID, the situation was "not acceptable".
"I want to say sorry to Georgina Wild's family," he said.
"The loss of any loved one is a terribly sad event, and in these circumstances, absolutely, very, very difficult, I'm sure, for the family to endure."
He said it was "clearly not acceptable" that an ambulance did not arrive for two and a half hours.
"We have passed on our concerns to St John about that," he said.
Delayed response inquiry promised
St John Ambulance chief executive Michelle Fyfe admitted there had been an "excessive delay".
"It was a delayed response that we are most certainly not happy with.
"It is a delayed response that doesn't meet or is coming close to our key performance indicators," she told ABC Radio Perth.
She said a clinical inquiry into the circumstances of the case would be launched immediately.
"But you know, no words are ever going to make this ... no one's ever going to make this better."
Ms Fyfe said St John would contact the family as soon as the police sent confirmation of next of kin details.
High demand stretches system
Ms Fyfe said from Saturday night into Sunday morning, the service was "incredibly stretched".
The incident came shortly before St John issued its second warning to the public in a week about likely delays in responding to emergency calls thanks to extreme demand for ambulance services.
Nearly 90,000 West Australians are currently in isolation with COVID, and Ms Fyfe said demand across the entire health system was very high at present.
"That's because we are in the midst of a pandemic, we're still in a state of emergency and demand is increasing," she said.
She said ambulance services around the nation had been suffering from an increase in demand, although this was "no excuse" for the woman's death.
A parliamentary inquiry is expected to report this week on whether ambulance services should be taken back into the public sector.
But Ms Fyfe said that even in the current difficult circumstances, WA's ambulance service was regularly in the top three in Australia, with more depots per capita than anywhere else.
"We are at the lowest cost to government and with a patient satisfaction rating of 97 per cent," she said.
More government involvement flagged
Mr McGowan said the nearest hospital to Ms Wild, Joondalup Health Campus, was not subject to ramping at the time she called for an ambulance.
"We're investigating what further involvement the government can have in these issues and what further management we can put in place to ensure better performance by our ambulance service," he said.
Mr McGowan said there were opportunities for St John to request the use of Department of Fire and Emergency Services personnel in times of crisis, and flagged greater government involvement in St John operations.
"At the point in time that this incident occurred, they had not requested that," he said.
"So we are working to try and get to the bottom of what happened and what further can be done."
Health system 'crumbling'
Opposition Leader Mia Davies said her heart went out to the family of the woman who died.
"It certainly doesn't help that we have a Health Minister and St Johns Ambulance, it would seem, at ten paces standing off," she said.
"We need the state government and St Johns to be working collaboratively to deliver the service that West Australians deserve.
"It seems unfathomable that we have such a significant surplus and yet we have a health system that is crumbling.
"They could've invested far earlier, what we see is large dollar investments being made hand over fist to try and spend their way out of a crisis of their own making."
Ms Davies said she hoped any future changes to St John were not politically motivated.
