LIFE threatening, Code 1 ambulance response time almost two minutes higher than the state average for Northern Grampians Shire.
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Ambulance Victoria have released the latest data revealing response times, reporting "record" demand over the October to December 2021 period.
Ambulance Victoria Grampians Acting Regional Director Tim Maywald said the COVID-19 Delta wave, the lifting of restrictions and the start of the Omicron wave had a huge impact on paramedics.
"It was our busiest quarter ever in Victoria," he said.
"We saw nearly 13,000 extra cases across the state."
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The local government areas of Ararat, Horsham and Stawell all had an increase of code 1 patients.
Paramedics mark their response times with how many jobs they reach within 15 minutes.
Response times for Ararat and Stawell improved for this period compared to last year however, they remain higher than the state average.
Mr Maywald said regional area response times can vary for a number of reasons.
"We see a rate of fluctuations in the nature of the work and our caseload (in the Grampians)," he said.
"That's one of the reasons why it is sometimes you'll see our recorded figures for the specific LGA tend to bounce around a little bit more than they do in the high density regions like the metropolitan region."
Mr Maywald said there is also an increase of people in these areas during the recorded period, which can impact the 15 minute indicator.
Ararat saw an average response time of 17 minutes and 34 seconds which Mr Maywald said could be due to elements such as distance.
"It really can depend on just where the jobs fall and we do sometimes we see patterns where holiday periods we find more people in more remote areas because it holidaying and camping and so on," he said.
"Those jobs might be more difficult for us to get to."
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The announcement of Code Brown for emergency services had also impacted the paramedics, Mr Maywald said but in a positive light.
"The time that we spend waiting to offload our patients can impact on us fairly dramatically in terms of performance," he said.
"That's helped us in terms of how we work with the hospitals to say that the flow of patients in the hospitals has worked well."
Mr Maywald said baseload of work for paramedics had been increasing before COVID-19 began.
"I don't think we could attribute it all to COVID," he said.
"We have our regular work that we would have any way with population increase and so on. But on top of that now we're dealing with the Omicron variant. That's given us a significant increase in demand as well."
Mr Maywald said the key message when Ambulance Victoria reported quatre data is to keep Triple Zero for emergencies.
"It's really important, it helps us get to get to patients who need us," he said.
"We ask that people are get vaccinated and getting their boosters now that they're available because still, the majority of patients who are seeking hospital especially the ones in the younger cohort are people who aren't vaccinated."
Greater Ararat
In the Ararat Local Government Area (LGA), paramedics attended 62.8 per cent of Code 1 patients in within 15 minutes - compared with 59.9 per cent for the same period in 2020.
The average Code 1 response time was 17 minutes and 34 seconds.
Northern Grampians
In the Northern Grampians Local Government Area (LGA), performance is improving with paramedics attending 62.9 per cent of Code 1 patients within 15 minutes - an improvement compared with 59.4 per cent for the same period in 2020.
The average response time to Code 1 patients was 16 minutes and 55 seconds.
Horsham
In the Horsham Local Government Area (LGA), there was a 11.8 per cent increase in life-threatening Code 1 cases from the same time a year earlier.
Paramedics attended 81.2 per cent of Code 1 patients in the Horsham LGA within 15 minutes - compared with 84.2 per cent for the same period in 2020.
The average Code 1 response time was 12 minutes.
Response times were faster in the major population centre of Horsham with paramedics reaching 88.4 per cent of Code 1 patients within 15 minutes, with an average response time of 10 minutes and 23 seconds.
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