MELTON MP Don Nardella has accused the state government of “gagging” Ambulance Victoria by preventing the release of response times to the public.
Mr Nardella said a website listing response times for the public to view was supposed to be launched last year.
Plans for the website were contained in Ambulance Victoria board meeting minutes obtained under freedom of information by the opposition.
They reveal Health Minister David Davis was briefed about the website in July last year. “The only way the public can find out whether response times have blown out across the state is through an FOI request,” Mr Nardella said.
“Denis Napthine and David Davis had gone out of their way to prevent this data from seeing the light of day because they don’t want to acknowledge the ambulance crisis.
“When asked about this issue in Parliament, Dr Napthine refused to answer why Victorians were being kept in the dark.”
The minutes show that in 2010, an auditor-general’s report recommended that Ambulance Victoria make performance information publicly available by region or locality.
In April, the Weekly reported that average response times in the six months to December were 16.28 minutes in Bacchus Marsh and 14.13 minutes in Melton.
The state target is 15 minutes.
Melton resident Joanne Vella, whose mother died five days after waiting several hours for an ambulance, said the government needed to make response times public. “What have they got to hide? If you’ve got nothing to hide you would put it out there. Obviously something is wrong in the system,” she said.
Ms Vella’s case with Ambulance Victoria is being reviewed.
Asked in Parliament last week about the availability of ambulance response times to the public, Dr Napthine replied: “We are releasing hospital early warning system data and we are releasing ambulance transfer time data, which are all relevant to the performance of Ambulance Victoria.”
He said $662 million was provided in the 2013-14 budget for ambulance resources.
“That is a 17.3 per cent increase in funding for ambulances since we came to government,” Dr Napthine said.
