More than a minute faster than the same time last year.
New figures show paramedics reached Echuca Code 1 calls in an average of nine minutes and 33 seconds from January to March — against the state average of 11.4 minutes.
Ambulance Victoria’s quarterly performance report revealed recently that our paramedics responded to 90.7 per cent of 193 Code 1 calls in the statewide target of under 15minutes, compared to 88.6 per cent in the same period last year.
Ambulance Victoria Loddon Mallee regional director Michael Georgiou said this was a great result considering Echuca-based paramedics covered a large geographic area and could be dispatched to Moama, Mathoura, Gunbower, Pine Grove and Tongala.
‘‘Echuca-Moama has the biggest workload across the border. Bigger than Yarrawonga-Mulwala and Albury-Wodonga,’’ he said.
‘‘Echuca has a particularly demanding workload so they are working with health services to make sure crews are not stuck waiting at the hospital.’’
Mr Georgiou said he expected to see a ‘‘significant difference’’ to those outstanding response times when the new Echuca-Moama bridge opened.
Across Campaspe, paramedics responded to 65 per cent of calls within 15 minutes during the period, with an average wait time of 14 minutes and 20 seconds, up from 67.3 per cent with a wait time of 14 minutes and 14 seconds the year before.
The Ambulance Service’s target specifies that 90 per cent of Code 1 incidents should be responded to within 15 minutes in places with populations greater than 7500.
Mr Georgiou said Campaspe was a challenging area because of distance.
‘‘Some of our barriers include workloads and working with health services to improve transfer periods,’’ he said.
‘‘That really impacts us and has been a challenge over the past three months.
‘‘The winter peak times have seen a lot of cold and flu cases which has had a big impact and there has been an increase in respiratory cases.
‘‘Our job is to work with communities to look at the profile and to provide educational support to reduce demand.’’
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