More than 30 people died due to overloaded Victoria’s triple-zero call service

Overview

Delays at Victoria’s overcrowded triple-zero service have been related to more than 30 fatalities. One caller had to wait more than 76 minutes for an ambulance because emergency services “just did not have enough call-takers,” an assessment reveals.

An independent review discovered that the pandemic overloaded Victoria’s triple-zero phone service and created delays, resulting in more than 30 fatalities. Because of the pandemic’s “extraordinary demand” on the system, one person had to wait more than 76 minutes for their emergency call to be answered. Tony Pearce, Victoria’s inspector general for emergency management, identified 40 potential negative events as the service’s operating company, the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (Esta), was overburdened by the epidemic. There were 33 fatalities.

“Victorians expect that when they call triple zero (000), their call will be answered promptly,” he wrote. “The current benchmark for Esta’s speed of call answer for emergency ambulance is that within a calendar month, Esta answers 90% of such calls within five seconds.

Calls could wait in line for up to 15 minutes in some instances.

Less than 70% of triple-zero calls were responded to during the epidemic because Esta “just did not have enough ambulance call-takers to satisfy enormous demand,” the investigation found. Esta “lost an opportunity” to request urgent government support in 2020 because it lacked the money to hire more people. Employees falling ill from Covid themselves made the issue worse.

Demand on the system surged when Victoria’s lockdowns ended and limitations were loosened toward the end of 2021. As the Omicron variant proliferated in January 2022, just 39% of calls were answered within the benchmark time.

“On 14 January, 2022, Esta received 2,501 calls, with 139 calls waiting more than ten minutes for Esta to answer, with the longest waiting over 76 minutes,” the review found. “Over the six months from October 2021 to March 2022, Esta reported the lowest emergency ambulance call answer performance in its history.”

Pearce suggested changing Esta’s funding, improving resources, increasing transparency, and improving public awareness of when to dial triple zero. He recommended reading his review with a different one published in May by former police chief Graham Ashton. The Ashton probe came after allegations of at least 12 deaths, including kids, caused by operators who either ignored or waited too long to answer emergency calls. The Victorian government has accepted the findings and supports all the recommendations.