Triple-0 crisis: The shocking wait time one ambulance caller endured last night

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Ambulance call wait times blew out again last night, with one caller was left waiting for what the boss of the Victorian Ambulance Union says is an unprecedented amount of time.

Wait times last night blew out to an average of between 10 minutes and 20 minutes.

And one caller was forced to wait for 39 minutes.

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill says he’s “never heard of a case waiting that long” before.

One woman in a nursing home died last night after staff at the facility experienced delays trying to get an ambulance for her.

“They’ve dialled Triple-0 and then it’s taken such a long period of time for them to get a response to the ambulance call taker that another staff member had called triple zero and asked for police in order to get through quicker,” Mr Hill told Neil Mitchell.

Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) CEO Marty Smyth resigned last week, less than two weeks after telling Neil Mitchell he would lead the emergency call system through the crisis.

Mr Hill says ESTA has “just sort of let this go”.

“The previous CEO of ESTA called it unprecedented demand … but we see this occurring often,” he said.

“It’s not unprecedented and, long term, they haven’t staffed it to manage this sort of workload when it occurs.”

Press PLAY below to hear Mr Hill’s criticism of ESTA management