Father Watches Helplessly As Son Dies
Posted on 2 May 2010 by LynThomas in Health, Society
A specialist MICA ambulance is now under fire after it arrived more than one hour after a father’s frantic call for help.
Ambulance Victoria, Australia, carry cardiac drugs and specialist intensive care paramedics trained to administer them.
Five year-old Rupert’s family phoned at 10.13 p.m. asking for urgent assistance. It took 22 minutes for the first ambulance to arrive at the scene, but only one ‘advanced life support’ member and an ‘ambulance community officer’ were on board. They were trained to only administer first aid and assist paramedics.
After realizing that Rupert was going into cardiac arrest they called for back-up requesting the MICA unit with its specialized crew and equipment.
A second ambulance arrived, but again without the proper equipment and training. The MICA medics did not arrive until 11.18p.m.
Rupert died of cardiac arrest at 11.50p.m, as paramedics carried the young boy to an air ambulance from Melbourne.
Ambulance Victoria spokesman James Howe said a MICA unit was not sent to treat Rupert immediately, because the initial emergency call was listed as ‘convulsion’. “Under the distress grid, that has a standard ambulance response, as opposed to a cardiac arrest, which requires MICA,” Mr Howe said.
Mr Rafferty, a CFA volunteer, said he did not blame ambulance workers for his son’s death, but said it was impossible not to wonder if he could have been saved, had there been a quicker MICA response. “I have heard of problems with response times and people complaining of them taking forever,” he said. “They do the best job they can, but I think the perception in the community is there needs to be more ambulances here. There needs to be more funding because the few that are here have way too big an area to cover.”
Ambulance Employees Australia state secretary Steve McGhie said Rupert’s case was the tip of the iceberg. Other cases the union listed include:
16 year-old Maffra girl died at a party last Saturday night when an ambulance arrived in 12 minutes, but a MICA unit took 20 minutes.
A pregnant woman was told to make her own way to hospital because an ambulance would take an hour to get to her.
A 26 year old man died after an ambulance took 36 minutes to reach him after a car accident at Bairnsdale.
Mr McGhie listed Moe, Warragul, Geelong, Ballarat, Morwell and Sale as being in urgent need of more ambulances and ambulance staff. “There is a serious game of Russian roulette going on,” he said.
There are only four, full-time MICA units in regional Victoria – stationed at Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong and Morwell.
However Ambulance Victoria says that in addition to the units, more than 100 trained MICA paramedics ride regularly in standard ambulances. General manager, Tony Walker, said “The most vigorous efforts were made to revive Rupert.”
A spokesman for Health Minister Daniel Andrews said the Government was “working hard” to provide better health care in country areas. “We’ve added almost 1200 extra operational paramedics.”
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