6 ms·

I can speak to this. I recently joined a community first responder association (I've always wanted to know what to do in case of a medical emergency) and was sh

by pugio 11mo ago

I can speak to this. I recently joined a community first responder association (I've always wanted to know what to do in case of a medical emergency) and was shocked to hear the members' horror stories of how long it can take an ambulance to arrive. Like the author, I grew up with the narrative "in trouble, call the ambulance, they'll scream through the streets to get to you in moments". That might still be true where I grew up, in the US, but that's certainly not a guarantee in Melbourne, where I now live. On joining the local volunteer organization, I went from thinking "oh this will be a useful bonus for the community" to "wow, we can literally be essential". Since our org is composed of people living within the community, average response time to ANY call is <5 minutes (lower for cardiac arrest, when people really move). Sometimes one of us is right next door. We can't do everything an ambulance paramedic can, but we can give aspirin, GTN, oxygen, CPR, and defibrillation. We can also usually navigate/bypass the usual triage system to get the ambulance priority upgraded to Code 1 (highest priority, lights + sirens, etc.) If for some reason the ambulance is far away (it backs up all the time), we can go in the patient's car with them to the hospital, with our gear, in case of further issues in transit. I tell everyone now to always call us first (since our dispatcher will also call the ambulance) but while I feel more confident in how I'd handle an emergency, I feel less safe overall, with the system's faults and failings more exposed, and the illusion of security stripped away. My condolences to the author. In terms of updating - consider whether The System is really working. If not, what can you do yourself (or within your larger network) to better prepare...

gobins 11mo ago
Wow melbourne is getting that bad! Does your org have a name?
- softgrow 11mo ago
  Sounds like Hatzolah Melbourne, https://hatzolah.org.au https://hatzolah.org.au since 1994 Since 1998, in Melbourne for anything that might need a defibrillator a fire engine is sent at the same time as the ambulance (EMR Emergency Medical Response Program). https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2002/177/6/cardiac-arrests-treated-ambulance-paramedics-and-fire-fighters https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2002/177/6/cardiac-arrests-tr... Medical Journal of Australia article. There is also GoodSAM https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/goodsam/ https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/goodsam/ for individual helpers
  - tharkun__ 11mo ago
    What about helicopters? Does Melbourne not have/use theirs in those cases or is the system just overwhelmed? Asking because (different country) when we had a person present with stroke symptoms and called 911, they sent both an ambulance and the helicopter. The heli came first but it had to land a ways off on a field and they had to walk over and basically arrived around the same time as the ambulance. A couple minutes earlier basically. No fire engine dispatched but that made sense too as it's volunteer based and while they would've been much closer, getting them to the station would've taken longer than the helicopter. Driving time for the ambulance if it came from the same place as the helipad would've been about 15 min for the ambulance. Fire engine driving time from volunteer department: 2 min but no dedicated paramedic services, just volunteer firefighters. Heli time in air probably about 2 minutes given the "as the crow flies" distance I just checked, add whatever time is needed to get them in the air and such. Now I can't really trust these numbers fully of course but according to "a quick AI analysis" :P Melbourne with millions of population has 0.08 helicopters and 8-10 ambulances per 100k population while the aforementioned location is at about 0.3 helicopters per 100k and 6-12 ambulances. Can it be true? It also says New York City has no emergency helicopters at all? Los Angeles has 0.18 per 100k? I know my current location definitely also has none at all. For millions of people.
    - softgrow 11mo ago
      I don't think my taxes/insurance costs/donations to charity are high enough. London (donation funded) has a helicopter service that attends 6 serious trauma cases a day. Denmark, Germany and others has a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service which delivers a senior doctor and paramedic. It probably doesn't scale well. Basic issues like overhead powerlines make life difficult for helicopters. They are used in rural Australia as an alternative to road, but only due to time saving. In a city, well you get a road ambulance/paramedic/medical team. The (Melbourne) Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry claims third best in the world in out of hospital cardiac arrest.
    - strken 11mo ago
      I was under the impression that air ambulances in Victoria are mostly for rural areas - either responding to incidents in the middle of nowhere, or flying patients to Melbourne for urgent specialist care. Most of them aren't even based in Melbourne, they're out in regional centres like Bendigo and Warrnambool[0]. A helicopter seems like it would be pretty useless for landing in an urban area. I can't imagine winching is risk-free or would save much time, and you can probably put many more ambulances on the ground for the cost of a single air ambulance. [0] https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/air-ambulance-victoria https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/air-ambulance-victoria
- scorpioxy 11mo ago
  Oh yes. Quite bad and I don't know if things are getting slightly better than "bad" or the media is tired of reporting about it. Up until a year or so ago, an appointment at a GP would take weeks of waiting. Specialist appointments were 1+ years waiting time. This is somewhat better now with the establishment of critical-care clinics operating after hours. This is from personal experience. The emergency rooms often had waiting time of 12+ hours(or more). I know someone who has been waiting on a procedure at the public hospital for 6+ years. Another has a child waiting for an appointment with an estimated wait time of 3+ years. All non-urgent but a wait list in the years is no longer a wait list to me, it's a system that is not fit for purpose. Initially all of this was attributed to the pandemic and the harsh lockdowns in Victoria. But a few years out, it seems difficult to still do that. When asked, our government just re-states that they've invested in this and that and then deflect. Recently, due to the horrible state finances, the healthcare system was being downsized with services cut and the bloodshed continues. This is without talking about the systemic issues and incompetence I've seen. The funny thing is that outsiders think that public health care means free. It's really not. We pay for it on top of our income tax(1-2% on top, more if you're above a certain threshold) and it is not cheap. It wouldn't be so bad if it was working like you'd expect but paying for a non-functional system is....I don't know what to say.
  - tecoholic 11mo ago
    Wow. I didn’t know that things are this way. I am a recent immigrant living close to the city and always seem to be able to see a GP on the same day. Is that because I have private insurance and I pay out of pocket anyways? If I were a citizen, I wouldn’t be able to go to those places (at least for “free healthcare”), and will have the same wait times? Or is it geography dependent with rural Victoria having issues and Melbourne city being well covered?
    - d0ublespeak 11mo ago
      With seeing a doctor we have two main systems that you can use and each will have a different waiting time. Bulk-billing and the fully public option has longer waiting times because there aren’t enough clinics/specialists or doctors, The reasons for this are complex but they stem from an unwillingness from prior governments to raise the amount the government pays for each service to adequately to support this system meaning less doctors and practices being willing to support it. You’ve then got practices/specialists etc… that charge copays and they tend to have less waiting times because less people are willing to pay copays. A lot of these practices will also do outright private billing which is what you’re experiencing.
anotherevan 11mo ago
Would that first responder association be Good Sam? https://www.goodsamapp.org/oz https://www.goodsamapp.org/oz I've been thinking of joining that.
pabs3 11mo ago
The emergency service number should be calling the closest first responders, not the other way around...
rich_sasha 11mo ago
My cousin's 3yo daughter stopped breathing one night, woke up struggling for breath, turning blue. They called the ambulance. Dispatcher said, 3 hr wait, and pretty please get off the phone, as there's a queue of callers. She started breathing again after a few minutes and seems fine, but they left the UK not long after that.
- pfannkuchen 11mo ago
  The dispatcher must not have understood right? This is like evil levels of incompetence otherwise, because the system can’t possibly be designed to do that right? So the dispatcher must have been in the wrong, but to make the dispatcher not completely evil we have to make her merely stupid and/or careless. That’s terrifying. Where did they go to if you don’t mind me asking?
  - roryirvine 11mo ago
    Yeah. Ambulance services have been hard-pressed in the UK in recent years, especially in the immediate aftermath of Covid - but this should very clearly have been a Category 1 call (unconscious, difficulty breathing, or heart attack symptoms). Last month in England (each country in the UK has its own stats), the mean response time (from dialling 999 to the ambulance arriving) for Cat 1 was 8 mins 1 second, and the 90th %ile time was 14m18s. That's a bit above the target response time of 7 mins, but a 3 hour wait strongly suggests a miscategorisation. "Is the patient breathing? Are they conscious?" are literally the first words on the dispatcher's script, so something seems to have gone terribly wrong here.
  - rich_sasha 11mo ago
    As I understand, the dispatcher simply said there ain't no ambulances around. It was 2024 - so well after COVID (though the NHS never really recovered, it seems). They took her to the nearest hospital, in Oxford, next morning. She seemed fine. Doctors said, can't reproduce the bug, ticket closed.
- verelo 11mo ago
  That’s wild. I fell off my garage roof almost 2 weeks back. My wife called the ambulance, they arrived within 20 minutes. We are in rural Ontario, 30 minutes from the nearest hospital, on a dirt road that is privately owned and maintained. I expected over an hour. I plan to make a trip in to the ambulance hall and fire hall this week and say thanks. I am ok, fractured vertebrae, but honestly i just am so grateful for the public service they provide.
moomoo11 11mo ago
First of all, my condolences to the author. I resonate with your thoughts about USA response times. We lived in a middle class suburb with mostly immigrants. When I was 10 my mom slipped in the bathtub and was knocked out. I dialed 911 crying and within 2 minutes a cop had arrived and only a few minutes later the fire truck first response had arrived. They helped my mom out and she was fine afterwards. It was so crazy for 10 yo me. I thought my mom was gone. I am so sorry for what the author and his family had to endure.
pfannkuchen 11mo ago
On the ambulance delay time. Have people perchance started calling ambulances for less and less serious matters over time? Thus increasing the calls per capita. I could kind of see that given what I’ve heard about 911, but then again maybe not. Also I feel like 50 years ago people would have been more worried about having some enforcement action taken against them for wasting the 911 line’s time on something inappropriate? Not sure if that enforcement ever actually happened, though.
- Spooky23 11mo ago
  Yes, but cities design for that. Urban paid departments have a 7 minute response time or less. My mom lived in the country, and the sheriff there started a paramedic service and trained deputies as EMTs. It made a huge difference as the paramedics arrive first in most cases.
stickfigure 11mo ago
That response time is better than where I live, in the country about an hour north of Oakland. Paramedics are about 30m away. We're a volunteer district and I'm a volunteer, but when I get paged it takes a few minutes for me to get dressed, 5m to get to the station, a few minutes to get the engine started, and ? mins to get to the incident. Realistically, the minimum response time is 15m. Sounds like you keep medbags at home and respond directly to the incident in personally owned vehicles? That's a neat idea. Does everyone have a medbag?
- pugio 11mo ago
  Yes that's right. We have a pretty extensive kit we keep in our car at all times. There's also a mobile app for alerts, navigation, and writing down vital signs and patient care records, and a radio for direct contact to dispatch and other responders.
  - stickfigure 11mo ago
    Interesting. We all have apps and radios, but right now there's only one medical bag per engine. We also have ~50 firefighters in the district, I can't imagine keeping that many medbags organized. But maybe for all the EMR/EMT trained people? I'll mention it to my superiors. It's a neat idea. I'm sure there's some reason we don't do it, probably insurance related (the district discourages - but does not prohibit - arriving on scene POV).
evanelias 11mo ago
Even in the US, response times can really vary. As an extreme example, in Jersey City (population ~300k) there were a bunch of incidents a couple years ago where residents called 911 in an emergency and no one answered.
- burnt-resistor 11mo ago
  E911 (location information sharing) also doesn't work consistently. The advantages of coming in an ambulance are traffic priority, priority attention in the ER, and medical triaging and coordination. The disadvantages in the US can be extremely expensive to some people if they don't have the correct insurance and inconsistent timeliness. The advantage of coming in a private vehicle are speed (usually), but at the disadvantage of having to get past ER gatekeepers and lack of information and preparedness. It is probably wise if possible to have a third person in the vehicle call the ER at the destination hospital to let them know what generally should be expected. Another issue is that it's inherently risky to live more than 30 minutes driving distance from a major city hospital. To do so basically necessitates a life flight which is extremely expensive and not necessarily quick either. The for-profit, gotcha capitalism monopolization of hospitals and medical services by private equity also results in worse, deadlier patient outcomes, hospital closures, and more expenses. Medicare for all (m4a) isn't a fix because of the Medicare Advantage scam, the medigap scam, the part D scam, and the lack of long-term care, skilled nursing, dental, vision/glasses, mental healthcare, and hearing aid coverage that doesn't provide true comprehensive single-payer healthcare at a sane cost per patient and with better outcomes.
  - _DeadFred_ 11mo ago
    If you live in the PNW/Hawaii and more than 30 minutes, or you go skiing, hiking, mountain biking, boating, or commute on highways that could take excess ambulance time think about getting a Life Flight membership. Know someone who is active outdoors but don't know what to get the for XMas, might make a good gift? https://www.lifeflight.org/ https://www.lifeflight.org/
gpt5 11mo ago
Melbourne has an excellent ambulance response time (defined from the moment 000 call is received to when the first ambulance resource arrives on scene): * Average Code 1 response time: 12 minutes 47 seconds * Code 1 responses within 15 minutes: 77.2% * Number of Code 1 first responses: 12,375 This places Melbourne among the faster councils in the state, and well ahead of the statewide average response time. Source: The Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office’s 2025 report: https://static.pbo.vic.gov.au/files/PBO_Ambulance-funding-and-response-times_PUBLIC.pdf https://static.pbo.vic.gov.au/files/PBO_Ambulance-funding-an...
- kelnos 11mo ago
  Perhaps my understanding here is lacking, but that doesn't sound good at all. Feels like if someone has some sort of cardiac event, or, worse, isn't breathing, by the time the ambulance gets there, they'll be dead, with too much brain death for any resuscitation effort to be worth it.
  - 747fulloftapes 11mo ago
    Yes, I believe your understanding is lacking. Ambulances are dispatched for other medical emergencies as well. Compared to many other parts of Australia and even the world, the response time statistics claimed are very good. Sadly, A heart attack can be fatal even with immediate medical intervention at a hospital. A defibrillator can only correct certain kinds of abnormal heart electrical activity. In my experience as soon as the dispatcher understands it's a medical problem, has confirmed the address and that the patient is not breathing, they will begin talking the caller through performing CPR. I suppose if I was concerned about it, the burden would be on me to move somewhere closer to the hospital or wherever the ambulance stages between calls. Unfortunqtely, there's always a chance no ambulance is available or that an accident has blocked the road. How soon do you believe assistance should arrive?
    - jimmymcgee73 11mo ago
      For reference in Los Angeles, a notoriously traffic filled metropolitan area, the average response time for a life threatening ambulance call is 6 minutes and 14 seconds and 98.8% in under 15 minutes
johnisgood 11mo ago
> how long it can take an ambulance to arrive When everything is far apart, or you live away from a city, that is definitely true. This is one of the cons of living outside the city. There are many perks, but this one is a con for me for sure. Especially because I have MS and I do not drive nor have a car.
mathgeek 11mo ago
Although we're a world away from each other, thank you for what you do. I greatly appreciate it.

by pugio 11mo ago

gobins 11mo ago

Wow melbourne is getting that bad! Does your org have a name?

softgrow 11mo ago
Sounds like Hatzolah Melbourne, https://hatzolah.org.au https://hatzolah.org.au since 1994 Since 1998, in Melbourne for anything that might need a defibrillator a fire engine is sent at the same time as the ambulance (EMR Emergency Medical Response Program). https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2002/177/6/cardiac-arrests-treated-ambulance-paramedics-and-fire-fighters https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2002/177/6/cardiac-arrests-tr... Medical Journal of Australia article. There is also GoodSAM https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/goodsam/ https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/goodsam/ for individual helpers
- tharkun__ 11mo ago
  What about helicopters? Does Melbourne not have/use theirs in those cases or is the system just overwhelmed? Asking because (different country) when we had a person present with stroke symptoms and called 911, they sent both an ambulance and the helicopter. The heli came first but it had to land a ways off on a field and they had to walk over and basically arrived around the same time as the ambulance. A couple minutes earlier basically. No fire engine dispatched but that made sense too as it's volunteer based and while they would've been much closer, getting them to the station would've taken longer than the helicopter. Driving time for the ambulance if it came from the same place as the helipad would've been about 15 min for the ambulance. Fire engine driving time from volunteer department: 2 min but no dedicated paramedic services, just volunteer firefighters. Heli time in air probably about 2 minutes given the "as the crow flies" distance I just checked, add whatever time is needed to get them in the air and such. Now I can't really trust these numbers fully of course but according to "a quick AI analysis" :P Melbourne with millions of population has 0.08 helicopters and 8-10 ambulances per 100k population while the aforementioned location is at about 0.3 helicopters per 100k and 6-12 ambulances. Can it be true? It also says New York City has no emergency helicopters at all? Los Angeles has 0.18 per 100k? I know my current location definitely also has none at all. For millions of people.
  - softgrow 11mo ago
    I don't think my taxes/insurance costs/donations to charity are high enough. London (donation funded) has a helicopter service that attends 6 serious trauma cases a day. Denmark, Germany and others has a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service which delivers a senior doctor and paramedic. It probably doesn't scale well. Basic issues like overhead powerlines make life difficult for helicopters. They are used in rural Australia as an alternative to road, but only due to time saving. In a city, well you get a road ambulance/paramedic/medical team. The (Melbourne) Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry claims third best in the world in out of hospital cardiac arrest.
  - strken 11mo ago
    I was under the impression that air ambulances in Victoria are mostly for rural areas - either responding to incidents in the middle of nowhere, or flying patients to Melbourne for urgent specialist care. Most of them aren't even based in Melbourne, they're out in regional centres like Bendigo and Warrnambool[0]. A helicopter seems like it would be pretty useless for landing in an urban area. I can't imagine winching is risk-free or would save much time, and you can probably put many more ambulances on the ground for the cost of a single air ambulance. [0] https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/air-ambulance-victoria https://www.ambulance.vic.gov.au/air-ambulance-victoria
scorpioxy 11mo ago
Oh yes. Quite bad and I don't know if things are getting slightly better than "bad" or the media is tired of reporting about it. Up until a year or so ago, an appointment at a GP would take weeks of waiting. Specialist appointments were 1+ years waiting time. This is somewhat better now with the establishment of critical-care clinics operating after hours. This is from personal experience. The emergency rooms often had waiting time of 12+ hours(or more). I know someone who has been waiting on a procedure at the public hospital for 6+ years. Another has a child waiting for an appointment with an estimated wait time of 3+ years. All non-urgent but a wait list in the years is no longer a wait list to me, it's a system that is not fit for purpose. Initially all of this was attributed to the pandemic and the harsh lockdowns in Victoria. But a few years out, it seems difficult to still do that. When asked, our government just re-states that they've invested in this and that and then deflect. Recently, due to the horrible state finances, the healthcare system was being downsized with services cut and the bloodshed continues. This is without talking about the systemic issues and incompetence I've seen. The funny thing is that outsiders think that public health care means free. It's really not. We pay for it on top of our income tax(1-2% on top, more if you're above a certain threshold) and it is not cheap. It wouldn't be so bad if it was working like you'd expect but paying for a non-functional system is....I don't know what to say.
- tecoholic 11mo ago
  Wow. I didn’t know that things are this way. I am a recent immigrant living close to the city and always seem to be able to see a GP on the same day. Is that because I have private insurance and I pay out of pocket anyways? If I were a citizen, I wouldn’t be able to go to those places (at least for “free healthcare”), and will have the same wait times? Or is it geography dependent with rural Victoria having issues and Melbourne city being well covered?
  - d0ublespeak 11mo ago
    With seeing a doctor we have two main systems that you can use and each will have a different waiting time. Bulk-billing and the fully public option has longer waiting times because there aren’t enough clinics/specialists or doctors, The reasons for this are complex but they stem from an unwillingness from prior governments to raise the amount the government pays for each service to adequately to support this system meaning less doctors and practices being willing to support it. You’ve then got practices/specialists etc… that charge copays and they tend to have less waiting times because less people are willing to pay copays. A lot of these practices will also do outright private billing which is what you’re experiencing.

anotherevan 11mo ago

Would that first responder association be Good Sam? https://www.goodsamapp.org/oz https://www.goodsamapp.org/oz I've been thinking of joining that.

pabs3 11mo ago

The emergency service number should be calling the closest first responders, not the other way around...

rich_sasha 11mo ago

My cousin's 3yo daughter stopped breathing one night, woke up struggling for breath, turning blue. They called the ambulance. Dispatcher said, 3 hr wait, and pretty please get off the phone, as there's a queue of callers. She started breathing again after a few minutes and seems fine, but they left the UK not long after that.

pfannkuchen 11mo ago
The dispatcher must not have understood right? This is like evil levels of incompetence otherwise, because the system can’t possibly be designed to do that right? So the dispatcher must have been in the wrong, but to make the dispatcher not completely evil we have to make her merely stupid and/or careless. That’s terrifying. Where did they go to if you don’t mind me asking?
- roryirvine 11mo ago
  Yeah. Ambulance services have been hard-pressed in the UK in recent years, especially in the immediate aftermath of Covid - but this should very clearly have been a Category 1 call (unconscious, difficulty breathing, or heart attack symptoms). Last month in England (each country in the UK has its own stats), the mean response time (from dialling 999 to the ambulance arriving) for Cat 1 was 8 mins 1 second, and the 90th %ile time was 14m18s. That's a bit above the target response time of 7 mins, but a 3 hour wait strongly suggests a miscategorisation. "Is the patient breathing? Are they conscious?" are literally the first words on the dispatcher's script, so something seems to have gone terribly wrong here.
- rich_sasha 11mo ago
  As I understand, the dispatcher simply said there ain't no ambulances around. It was 2024 - so well after COVID (though the NHS never really recovered, it seems). They took her to the nearest hospital, in Oxford, next morning. She seemed fine. Doctors said, can't reproduce the bug, ticket closed.
verelo 11mo ago
That’s wild. I fell off my garage roof almost 2 weeks back. My wife called the ambulance, they arrived within 20 minutes. We are in rural Ontario, 30 minutes from the nearest hospital, on a dirt road that is privately owned and maintained. I expected over an hour. I plan to make a trip in to the ambulance hall and fire hall this week and say thanks. I am ok, fractured vertebrae, but honestly i just am so grateful for the public service they provide.

moomoo11 11mo ago

First of all, my condolences to the author. I resonate with your thoughts about USA response times. We lived in a middle class suburb with mostly immigrants. When I was 10 my mom slipped in the bathtub and was knocked out. I dialed 911 crying and within 2 minutes a cop had arrived and only a few minutes later the fire truck first response had arrived. They helped my mom out and she was fine afterwards. It was so crazy for 10 yo me. I thought my mom was gone. I am so sorry for what the author and his family had to endure.

pfannkuchen 11mo ago

On the ambulance delay time. Have people perchance started calling ambulances for less and less serious matters over time? Thus increasing the calls per capita. I could kind of see that given what I’ve heard about 911, but then again maybe not. Also I feel like 50 years ago people would have been more worried about having some enforcement action taken against them for wasting the 911 line’s time on something inappropriate? Not sure if that enforcement ever actually happened, though.

Spooky23 11mo ago
Yes, but cities design for that. Urban paid departments have a 7 minute response time or less. My mom lived in the country, and the sheriff there started a paramedic service and trained deputies as EMTs. It made a huge difference as the paramedics arrive first in most cases.

stickfigure 11mo ago

That response time is better than where I live, in the country about an hour north of Oakland. Paramedics are about 30m away. We're a volunteer district and I'm a volunteer, but when I get paged it takes a few minutes for me to get dressed, 5m to get to the station, a few minutes to get the engine started, and ? mins to get to the incident. Realistically, the minimum response time is 15m. Sounds like you keep medbags at home and respond directly to the incident in personally owned vehicles? That's a neat idea. Does everyone have a medbag?

pugio 11mo ago
Yes that's right. We have a pretty extensive kit we keep in our car at all times. There's also a mobile app for alerts, navigation, and writing down vital signs and patient care records, and a radio for direct contact to dispatch and other responders.
- stickfigure 11mo ago
  Interesting. We all have apps and radios, but right now there's only one medical bag per engine. We also have ~50 firefighters in the district, I can't imagine keeping that many medbags organized. But maybe for all the EMR/EMT trained people? I'll mention it to my superiors. It's a neat idea. I'm sure there's some reason we don't do it, probably insurance related (the district discourages - but does not prohibit - arriving on scene POV).

evanelias 11mo ago

Even in the US, response times can really vary. As an extreme example, in Jersey City (population ~300k) there were a bunch of incidents a couple years ago where residents called 911 in an emergency and no one answered.

burnt-resistor 11mo ago
E911 (location information sharing) also doesn't work consistently. The advantages of coming in an ambulance are traffic priority, priority attention in the ER, and medical triaging and coordination. The disadvantages in the US can be extremely expensive to some people if they don't have the correct insurance and inconsistent timeliness. The advantage of coming in a private vehicle are speed (usually), but at the disadvantage of having to get past ER gatekeepers and lack of information and preparedness. It is probably wise if possible to have a third person in the vehicle call the ER at the destination hospital to let them know what generally should be expected. Another issue is that it's inherently risky to live more than 30 minutes driving distance from a major city hospital. To do so basically necessitates a life flight which is extremely expensive and not necessarily quick either. The for-profit, gotcha capitalism monopolization of hospitals and medical services by private equity also results in worse, deadlier patient outcomes, hospital closures, and more expenses. Medicare for all (m4a) isn't a fix because of the Medicare Advantage scam, the medigap scam, the part D scam, and the lack of long-term care, skilled nursing, dental, vision/glasses, mental healthcare, and hearing aid coverage that doesn't provide true comprehensive single-payer healthcare at a sane cost per patient and with better outcomes.
- _DeadFred_ 11mo ago
  If you live in the PNW/Hawaii and more than 30 minutes, or you go skiing, hiking, mountain biking, boating, or commute on highways that could take excess ambulance time think about getting a Life Flight membership. Know someone who is active outdoors but don't know what to get the for XMas, might make a good gift? https://www.lifeflight.org/ https://www.lifeflight.org/

gpt5 11mo ago

Melbourne has an excellent ambulance response time (defined from the moment 000 call is received to when the first ambulance resource arrives on scene): * Average Code 1 response time: 12 minutes 47 seconds * Code 1 responses within 15 minutes: 77.2% * Number of Code 1 first responses: 12,375 This places Melbourne among the faster councils in the state, and well ahead of the statewide average response time. Source: The Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office’s 2025 report: https://static.pbo.vic.gov.au/files/PBO_Ambulance-funding-and-response-times_PUBLIC.pdf https://static.pbo.vic.gov.au/files/PBO_Ambulance-funding-an...

kelnos 11mo ago
Perhaps my understanding here is lacking, but that doesn't sound good at all. Feels like if someone has some sort of cardiac event, or, worse, isn't breathing, by the time the ambulance gets there, they'll be dead, with too much brain death for any resuscitation effort to be worth it.
- 747fulloftapes 11mo ago
  Yes, I believe your understanding is lacking. Ambulances are dispatched for other medical emergencies as well. Compared to many other parts of Australia and even the world, the response time statistics claimed are very good. Sadly, A heart attack can be fatal even with immediate medical intervention at a hospital. A defibrillator can only correct certain kinds of abnormal heart electrical activity. In my experience as soon as the dispatcher understands it's a medical problem, has confirmed the address and that the patient is not breathing, they will begin talking the caller through performing CPR. I suppose if I was concerned about it, the burden would be on me to move somewhere closer to the hospital or wherever the ambulance stages between calls. Unfortunqtely, there's always a chance no ambulance is available or that an accident has blocked the road. How soon do you believe assistance should arrive?
  - jimmymcgee73 11mo ago
    For reference in Los Angeles, a notoriously traffic filled metropolitan area, the average response time for a life threatening ambulance call is 6 minutes and 14 seconds and 98.8% in under 15 minutes

johnisgood 11mo ago

> how long it can take an ambulance to arrive When everything is far apart, or you live away from a city, that is definitely true. This is one of the cons of living outside the city. There are many perks, but this one is a con for me for sure. Especially because I have MS and I do not drive nor have a car.

mathgeek 11mo ago

Although we're a world away from each other, thank you for what you do. I greatly appreciate it.