State Member for Wallsend, Ms Sonia Hornery MP, will today move a Notice of Motion in the NSW Parliament calling on the NSW Health Minister to address the chronic under resourcing and paramedic shortage immediately following the death of a local woman in January.
On January 4, local mother of three, Hanna Scigala, suffered a catastrophic anaphylactic reaction. She immediately called Triple Zero to have an ambulance dispatched as her airways were severely compromised. The call was logged immediately as a Code One priority.
Due to the large number of ambulances stuck in bed block at Hunter Hospitals, a team was unable to be dispatched to Hanna until 10:26pm. The ambulance was dispatched from Belmont Hospital and did not arrive in Maryland until 10:52pm.
Sadly, due to a lack of oxygen to her brain, Hanna suffered a Hypoxic Brain Injury and died a few days later.
Ms Hornery will be calling on the Health Minister to address the chronic under resourcing and paramedic shortage immediately to ensure an incident like this doesn’t happen again.
“We have an ambulance system in NSW at complete breaking point and unfortunately, unless this Government invests quickly in providing additional paramedics, we are likely to see more tragic circumstances like this,” Ms Hornery said.
“This is becoming a regular occurrence. We are going backwards at an alarming rate, with the data showing that ambulance waiting times are now the worst in over a decade.
“Our hospitals were under resourced before the pandemic, and the latest outbreak since December has just made the situation even more dire.
“I have written to the Health Minister about this case and I am sure in a couple of months I will get the usual response from his Parliamentary Secretary telling me what a great job the Government is doing and how much they are investing in Health.
“But the Paramedics that I speak to tell me that they spend hours on every shift just sitting around in Emergency Department waiting rooms, waiting to hand over patients in hospitals that are stretched beyond breaking point.
“Nurses are walking off the job today because they are exhausted under the strain of the health system.
“A 52 minute response time to a Code One priority shows the strain our Paramedics are under and it shows the strain the entire health system is under.
“The Government needs to address the chronic under resourcing and paramedic shortage immediately. We cannot have another tragic set of circumstances like Hanna’s death again” said Ms Hornery.