Rapid offload emergency: More than 30 ambulances ramped overnight

Ambulance Victoria declared yet another rapid offload emergency last night.

The alert was made shortly before 9:30pm, after more than 30 ambulances were ‘ramped’ — taken off the road while waiting with their patients outside hospital emergency departments.

At the time of the declaration only four per cent of the state’s fleet of ambulances was available to respond to triple-0 calls, after twelve major hospitals advised of ambulance offload delays between two and seven hour.

Ambulance Victoria’s rapid offload protocol aims to overcome the issue caused by an insufficient availability of emergency department beds and the delay of admitting of emergency patients into the hospital due to a lack of resources.