Investigations are underway after a woman died while waiting more than six hours for an ambulance in Melbourne's south-east.
The woman, aged in her 30s, called triple zero from her Caulfield North home on Wednesday night after complaining of numbness, tingling and feeling light headed.
Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said it was understood she was classified as a code 2 or code 3, meaning an ambulance should have arrived within 25 to 60 minutes.
Mr Hill said the communications centre tried to contact the woman and did everything they could to get paramedics to her, but there was "much more higher acuity work coming in".
"It was such a busy night, too many crews were ramped at hospital," Mr Hill said.
"Unfortunately, by the time an ambulance did attend, six hours had gone by and she's unfortunately passed away."
Mr Hill said paramedics then faced a delay getting into the building due to a number of reasons, inlcuding the presence of a dog. But he said before gaining access, they could see the woman lying still on the floor.
Health Minister Martin Foley has instructed Ambulance Victoria and Safer Care Victoria to "immediately set up an investigation into this patient's death".
Ambulance Victoria's acting chief operating officer, Mick Stephenson confirmed the organisation was "investigating this tragedy".
"Out of respect for a family in grief, I will not be commenting further," he said in a statement.
Emergency departments 'crushed' by demand
Mr Hill said it was sadly not a surprise as ambulance ramping — where paramedics are unable to hand their patients over due to busy emergency departments being at capacity — continued to be an issue.
"We've been very lucky for a long period of time just with the demands since coming out of the pandemic and I think we all have a sense that eventually a patient would lose their life while waiting for an ambulance," he said.
He said there were many factors behind the delays, including emergency departments being "crushed" by demand, short staffing and a lack of emergency beds.
"But we also need to see people getting back into the habit of seeing their GP," he said.
Attendance at GP clinics dropped dramatically during the height of the pandemic, and many people did not follow their usual health and medication plans.
Mr Hill said this meant paramedics were spending a lot of time responding to chronic health conditions who now needed emergency treatment.
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said the delay "demonstrates what a crisis we have in not only our ambulance system, but our entire health system".
Ms Crozier said the government should prioritise money for the health system to respond to the "absolute disaster".
