Mrs Tyrrell recently received an independent Parliamentary Budget Office report on code one ambulance response times and costs across every regional Victorian council.
“Ambulance Victoria define their most critical response to an incident as a code one response, with a target time of within 15 minutes to attend such an incident,” she said.
“The report I have received from the Parliamentary Budget Office is that in 2023-24 Ambulance Victoria met this target in just 20 per cent of regional local government areas.”
Of the 25 councils in Mrs Tyrrell’s electorate, five recorded an average response time to code one incidents of under 15 minutes.
From October to December last year, 55.7 per cent of code one incidents were responded to within AV’s target in Campaspe, although Echuca had an average response time of 11 minutes and 31 seconds.
In Gannawarra, 42.1 per cent of code one incidents were responded to within the target, for an average response time of 23 minutes and 31 seconds.
When these figures were released, AV had recorded its fourth-busiest quarter on record.
The report Mrs Tyrrell requested shows the state government decreased funding for ambulance emergency services by 4.5 per cent for the 2024-25 financial year.
Funding for non-emergency responses increased by 20.4 per cent, including for services that are designed to take pressure off paramedics, such as AV’s Secondary Triage team.
Around 70 per cent of AV’s funding comes from the government, which reduced total funding for ambulance services by over $20 million in 2024-25.
Mrs Tyrrell said “unacceptable” ambulance response times in her electorate called for more funding.
“The dedicated paramedics in northern Victoria work so hard to save lives but they clearly need more resources,” she said.
“Lives potentially are being lost and rather than cut ambulance funding the state government need to increase funding for more resources in northern Victoria and all regional local government areas.”
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