More health resources are desperately needed in north-west Victoria, according to the union, after a netballer had to wait two-and-a-half hours for an ambulance to treat her injury on Saturday.
A Grade player and coach Breigh Hammet severely dislocated her ankle playing in a match at Merbein, which is a 10-minute drive from Mildura.
Triple zero was immediately called, but Ms Hammet remained on court without painkillers for more than two hours while she waited for an ambulance to arrive.
Ms Hammet described it as a "horrible" day.
She was told the ambulance had to travel to Merbein from Ouyen, which is more than 110 kilometres away.
"The treatment and response I received from the two ambulance members when they did attend was phenomenal," she said.
"Unfortunately, there are shortages across the field and Saturday's wait-time was a result of that.
"The health staff on the ground floor can't be criticised. There just needs to be more of them."
Incident under review
Ambulance Victoria Loddon Mallee Regional director Trevor Weston said the "the most appropriate ambulance was dispatched within the appropriate timeframe", but the incident was being reviewed.
Ambulance Victoria declined to comment about why an ambulance was dispatched from Ouyen rather than Mildura, a rural city 13 kilometres away with a population of about 50,000.
Mr Weston said they had been dealing with record numbers of life-threatening emergencies across the state for a third consecutive quarter.
"The stress is on the whole of the health system. These are record workloads," he said.
But Ambulance Employees Australia Victoria (AEAV) secretary Brett Adie said Ms Hammet's long wait was "unacceptable" despite the added strain on the system.
"Nobody should be made to wait two-and-a-half-hours for an ambulance with a bone protruding out of their leg," he said.
"That's just not good enough."
Issues pre-date COVID-19
Steven Fumberger retired as a north-west area manager for Ambulance Victoria just two weeks ago after 12 years in the role.
He said while COVID-19 had made matters worse, the workforce had "been really struggling for the last five years".
"The population has been growing at a fairly steady pace, and we haven't increased our roster lines, or our resourcing generally to match it," Mr Fumberger said.
"We're at a stage now … where we are going to need a review and a change.
"The demand on our resourcing is just too high."
Mr Fumberger and Mr Adie are advocating a petition addressed to Mildura MP Ali Cupper to secure more staff in the north-west.
Isolation issues
Mr Adie said Mildura required more resources because of its isolation.
"They need to understand in Melbourne that Mildura is not Broadmeadows — you can't just pull an ambulance from the next town, because the next town is 100 kilometres away," he said.
"We're hearing from paramedics in Ouyen and Robinvale that they're being used as a Mildura resource.
"What people in Ouyen and Robinvale don't realise is that [for] many hours of the day, they don't have an ambulance within 100 kilometres of them, because they are in Mildura.
"Eventually we're going to have people dying in Ouyen and Robinvale because they couldn't get an ambulance."
