The South Australian Premier has acknowledged a vulnerable man who died while waiting 10 hours for an ambulance was a victim of the state's ongoing ramping crisis. An investigation which was already underway into ramping will now look into the Hectorville man's case too as the state's ambulance service launches its own inquiry.
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00:00 Pictures shared on social media show Eddie smiling and enjoying outings organised through
00:07 his disability support provider. The 54-year-old was living in assisted accommodation at a
00:13 home in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, where flowers have now been left in his memory.
00:18 Eddie died last week while waiting 10 hours for an ambulance for abdominal pain and vomiting.
00:24 My thoughts are with the deceased and their next of kin and their family.
00:30 An ambulance should have arrived within an hour, but with high triple zero demand and
00:34 significant hospital ramping, other more urgent call outs were prioritised. As Eddie's symptoms
00:41 worsened, his case was changed to a priority one, but by then it was too late.
00:47 Eddie's support provider, Lighthouse Disability, said in a statement it didn't want to comment,
00:51 other than to say it was deeply saddened by the passing of one of its clients.
00:56 The Premier, elected in 2022 on a promise of fixing the ramping crisis, says the government
01:02 is getting on with the job by bringing 150 extra hospital beds online this year.
01:16 We have got a situation in our health care system that should make South Australians
01:22 extremely worried about the way our government is operating.
01:26 Overall, the government's goal of reaching a priority one patient within eight minutes
01:31 has seen major progress since Labor was elected, but the Premier still acknowledges Eddie was
01:37 a victim of the ramping crisis, with more questions about his case to be answered in
01:42 the review.
01:43 When the priority one call was made, the ambulance got there within four minutes. So that system
01:48 worked as it should. The question is, why wasn't that upgraded earlier and why was the
01:52 wait so long in the first instance? And that's what the investigation will look into.
01:56 An investigation South Australia's health system desperately needs.
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