What can be done about overwhelmed ambulance services across Australia?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-01-13 13:00

Australia

What does this mean?

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During the Omicron surge, ambulance services are experiencing increased patient numbers, emergency department ramping, shortages of supplies such as personal protective equipment (PPE), and staff absences resulting from staff being furloughed, awaiting testing, becoming infected or as a result of exhaustion and burn-out. As a result, we are now seeing the predicted overwhelming of ambulance services’ capacity across Australia, resulting in significantly delayed response times to emergency calls. OzSAGE are calling for a range of immediate, urgent and medium term actions to address this crisis.