The Queensland Ambulance Service has been plagued by communications problems. Source: The Courier-Mail
A BRISBANE man died after he was left to treat himself for 15 minutes when ambulance dispatchers wrongly classified his injuries as non-life threatening.
The man, whose leg was crushed by his own truck, died of a heart attack only three minutes from the closest ambulance station, after a series of blunders resulted in an ambulance being dispatched from a more distant station.
The case, revealed under Right to Information, is the latest to highlight problems within the Queensland Ambulance Service and emergency departments.
Paramedics have blamed inconsistent front-line staffing, unreliable communications equipment and muddled training for the problems that continue to plague the QAS despite promises of reform four years ago.
In the latest RTI, The Courier-Mail was given full access to only 73 pages of documents, partial access to 384 pages of documents but refused access to 944 pages detailing patient complaints to the Department of Community Safety.
Breaching patient privacy and cases still under investigation were cited as reasons documents were withheld.
Other cases referred for further investigation including to the Queensland Health Quality and Complaints Commission were:
• A 90-year-old woman vomiting from severe abdominal pain waited more than eight hours for emergency treatment after being diverted from two hospitals before being treated at QEII Hospital.
• Five acute patients left in an emergency department corridor "unsupervised and unmonitored".
• A patient with severe cramping and struggling to breathe waited 50 minutes for an ambulance to arrive and was then left in a hallway at Caboolture Hospital before being admitted.
• An ambulance carrying a man in extreme pain returned to the depot to put him in another ambulance before taking him to hospital.
Records show the Brisbane man who was crushed by the truck was bleeding heavily while QAS staff juggled lunch breaks, and messages left on radios and pagers went unanswered.
When paramedics arrived, they realised his injuries were so severe they required an Intensive Care vehicle and a medical officer, who arrived 15-20 minutes later.
Nearly 50 minutes after he first called triple-0 the man had a heart attack and could not be revived.
QAS Commissioner Russell Bowles said he was not proud of the way the man's case was handled but recommendations for improvements had been implemented.
"We will continue to try and improve the system. When you deal with the workload we do, you make mistakes."
Paramedic unions say the system has not been fixed. "Those guys are under a hell of a lot of pressure," said United Voice ambulance co-ordinator Jeanette Temberley, who said staff usually got blamed for any bad outcomes.
Australian Paramedics Association Queensland president Prebs Sathiaseelan said radios regularly failed and there weren't enough staff to cover for breaks.
Mr Bowles denied QAS needed more staff or that staff were over-burdened or not well-managed.
"I say our workforce is adequate. It was a litany of errors that just happened," he said.
A spokeswoman for Community Safety Minister Jack Dempsey said he was too busy to be interviewed by The Courier-Mail.
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