Ambulances were ramped outside Perth hospitals for a record 370 hours on Monday July 11 – the highest number for a single day in data going back more than five years.
Figures obtained by Medical Forum show the record was hit on the eve of the departure of St John Ambulance’s embattled chief executive officer Michelle Fyfe.
The previous ambulance ramping record was set on October 18, 2021, with 362 hours.
The unprecedented ramping hours have continued to remain high after Ms Fyfe’s departure, with ambulances queued for 317 hours outside hospitals on Monday (July 18) this week. Only 62.3% of priority one (emergency) calls were responded to within the recommended 15 minutes on that day – well below the 90% target.
Ms Fyfe’s resignation in June followed scrutiny of St John after the deaths of three West Australians waiting for ambulances, amid a blow-out in ramping figures and a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Ms Fyfe was due to finish her four-year contract in October but stepped down on July 12.
When announcing last month that she was leaving, she described the CEO role as “fulfilling but taxing.”
While some critics have pointed the finger at St John over the worsening ramping situation, others have argued it has become the scapegoat for a struggling health system.
Every State has been reporting record ambulance ramping and deteriorating response times. St John WA is the only Australian ambulance service which publicly publishes daily ambulance ramping and performance figures.
Ramping it considered to impact on response times once it hits an average of 50 hours a day, or about 1500 hours per month.
What is ambulance ramping?
In its position statement on ambulance ramping, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine says that “In a well-functioning system, with good access to cubicles and beds, the time interval of ambulance arrival to clinical handover should routinely occur within 15 minutes and never take more than 30 minutes.”