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Nearly 100 South Australian patients in need of emergency and urgent care have died while waiting for delayed ambulances to arrive since Labor took office with a promise to "fix the ramping crisis".
SA Ambulance Service data shows 91 patients – including 33 triaged as priority 1 and 58 triaged as priority 2 – died between March 20, 2022, and December 19, 2023, while waiting for delayed ambulances to arrive.
The SA Ambulance Service aims to reach all priority 1 "emergency" call-outs within eight minutes and "urgent" priority 2 call-outs within 16 minutes across metropolitan Adelaide.
The ABC can reveal that in October 2022, one patient triaged as priority 1 died in the Tea Tree Gully local government area while waiting 18 minutes for paramedics to arrive.
Another patient triaged as priority 2 died in the Marion local government area in June 2022 while waiting 96 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.
The data was released to the ABC following a freedom of information request and captures the number of ambulance patient deaths since Labor was elected at the March 2022 state election with a promise to "fix the ramping crisis".
The ABC has not been told what caused the patients' deaths, or to what extent the ambulance delays impacted their chances of survival.
While admitting the state government has "more to do" to improve ambulance response times, Health Minister Chris Picton said the statistics "do not represent adverse events".
"What you can see from the data, which would be consistent with any ambulance service right across the world, is that there are people that paramedics unfortunately can't save based on their medical condition," he said.
"That's not the fault of the paramedics who work their guts out to try to save those people, but there are separate measures that SA Ambulance Service will [use when] conducting reviews if there are adverse events, if there was something wrong that happened in those circumstances.
"We can see over the course of the past 12 months as additional resources have been coming online, that we've been able to see a reduction in adverse events, we've seen a reduction in those deaths overall through the statistics."
The ABC has asked the SA Ambulance Service for data showing how many "adverse events" have been reported since the state election, but is yet to receive a response.
Two patients die while ramped outside Adelaide hospital
The SA Ambulance Service data provided to the ABC also reveals that since the last state election, two patients have died while ramped outside Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide's south.
One patient died in March 2022 while ramped for 2 hours and 50 minutes.
The other died in March 2023 while ramped for 47 minutes.
SA Ambulance Service CEO Rob Elliott said patients occasionally experience "sudden, unexpected deterioration" while in the care of paramedics.
"If that occurs while in a transfer of care delay, we will immediately escalate their care into the emergency department," he said.
"It is one of those unfortunate moments where sometimes people do deteriorate."
Mr Elliott said any patient death was a "tragic loss for families".
He said all ambulance patient deaths are added to a "safety learning system" and are assessed for any issues.
"We are working incredibly hard to improve the ambulance system in South Australia, to improve our response times, to try to get to people as quickly as we can whenever possible," he said.
"We are committed to improving our performance for the benefit of South Australians.
"I think it's critical that people retain their confidence in SA Ambulance Service."
Drop in deaths over the past two years
Mr Picton said the number of patients who died while waiting for ambulances "significantly" reduced between 2022 and 2023.
In 2023, 35 priority 1 and 2 patients died while waiting for delayed ambulances, down from 68 in 2022.
Under the former Liberal government, the number of ambulance patient deaths fluctuated.
In 2021, 29 patients died while waiting for delayed ambulances. That compares with 27 deaths in 2020, 34 deaths in 2019 and 25 deaths in 2018.
Over the past six years, more patients died when ambulances arrived on time, compared to when they were delayed.
"We knew when we came to government that we have an ambulance system that's under significant pressure," Mr Picton said.
"That's why we put in very significant extra resources – over 170 extra ambos into the system – and we can see that is now delivering results."
Opposition spokesperson Ashton Hurn said the statistics "highlight the shocking and very real impact of record ramping on South Australians".
"We now need to know what action was taken and whether full inquiries were conducted so that families have answers," she said.
Since the 2022 state election, the percentage of priority 1 SA Ambulance Service call-outs responded to within the eight-minute target time increased from 59.4 per cent in March 2022, to 71.5 per cent in January 2024.
There has also been an improvement in the percentage of priority 2 call-outs responded to on time – up from 40.9 per cent in March 2022, to 65.1 per cent in January 2024.
But the number of hours ambulances spent ramped outside hospital emergency departments with patients due to a lack of available beds increased from 2,711 in March 2022, to 3,960 in January 2024.
Ambulance review into patient's death due within weeks
The release of the data comes as the SA Ambulance Service conducts a review into the death of an Adelaide man who waited 10 hours for an ambulance to arrive.
Eddie died in his disability care home in Hectorville on December 27, after experiencing vomiting and abdominal pain.
Three triple-0 calls were made from the 54-year-old's home, during a day of ramping across all Adelaide metropolitan hospitals.
Mr Elliott said the review of his death, led by SA Ambulance's Chief Medical Advisor, Dr Amy Keir, was still underway.
"We are hoping that it will be released in the coming weeks," he said.
"We want the review to be comprehensive and effective."
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