Seymour local Shirley McLellan celebrated her 80th birthday on Saturday, June 8, but four days later, she was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery.
Ms McLellan said she was doubling over with pain in her stomach on Wednesday, June 12, so she consulted her doctor over the phone.
“He (doctor) said he’ll fix everything down to Epworth Richmond hospital, and when you get off the phone to ring for an ambulance,” she said.
“I'd already pressed this vital call button. It’s an emergency button.”
When she pressed her emergency button, strapped around her wrist, she said she told the operator she needed an ambulance.
“By the time the call got to the paramedics, they wanted to know my info and everything,” Ms McLellan said.
“They said, ‘Oh, we don’t have an ambulance here to go take you down for three to four hours’.”
She said the ambulance wait time worried her, so she got in touch with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to see if it had any taxis available to get her to Richmond.
She said she tried calling for taxis in Seymour, but she couldn’t get any in town.
By that time, she called her trusted taxi driver, Leanne McKenzie, who was returning from Wodonga.
“I was on my way back from picking up a new car in Wodonga when she called me and I said to her, ‘You need to call an ambulance’ because I was so far away that I wouldn't have been able to get to the car and get back to it,” Ms McKenzie said.
“She called me back and said they’re going to be three and a half hours, so I was still an hour away from home, so I rushed home, got my taxi licence and whatnot, cleared it with DVA and the taxi service.”
Ms McKenzie said she picked up Ms McLellan as soon as she was able to, and they arrived at Epworth Richmond hospital just before the ambulance would have picked her up from her home.
“The upshot was that she was in a bad way and had to have emergency surgery,” Ms McKenzie said.
“The doctor came out and I said to him, ‘Is it okay that we go back to Seymour?’,” Ms McLellan said.
“He said, ‘You won't leave, you need an operation badly’.”
Ms McKenzie stayed with Ms McLellan while she was in surgery.
When Ms McLellan was transferred to the intensive care unit, the doctor told her she had a really close call.
“Eighth of June was my 80th birthday ... I suppose I ought to thank God that I’m here,” she said.
“The doctors told me in the ICU that they nearly lost me.”
An Ambulance Victoria spokesperson said they understood that waiting for an ambulance for ‘less urgent’ cases could be frustrating.
“Emergency ambulances are allocated based on clinical need and the information provided by the caller, with priority given to the sickest patients, particularly those with life-threatening conditions such as cardiac arrest, stroke and major trauma,” they said.
Ambulance Victoria clarified that based on the information provided during the call, the patient’s condition was assessed as not urgent — not requiring an emergency ambulance — and the patient opted to make their own way to hospital rather than wait for a non-emergency patient transport service.
Ms McKenzie said that when they arrived at the hospital, two ambulances were parked, and it made her furious.
“They were sitting there with patients in the hallway,” she said.
“The ramping situation is such that it’s taking ambulances off the road, so people like Shirley miss out because they’re stuck at a hospital parked.”