With his wife on an ambulance trolley waiting for admission to Bendigo Hospital's emergency department and the paramedics she arrived with unable to leave, David Hooke knew the system had to change.
The Hookes are not alone in asking why one of the state's biggest regional cities has an ambulance service so understaffed crews are sometimes diverted to serious incidents from as far as Rochester, 70 kilometres away, leaving smaller Central Victoria towns towns unattended.
The retirees, from Golden Square, a suburb of the central Victorian city just minutes' from the hospital, waited about 15 minutes before an ambulance crew arrived to treat and transport Jill Hooke.
Then Mrs Hooke, who had suffered a minor strike, spent an hour "ramped" — forced to wait with the ambulance crew to be admitted, Mr Hooke said.
"While that's happening, the ambulance can't go away and do another job, so it's a more comprehensive problem than just the ambulance service," he said.
"The whole system needs a bit of a rethink."
Victorian Ambulance Union state secretary Danny Hill agrees, saying the city is understaffed for its size.
"Areas like Bendigo are particularly bad and particularly under-resourced," he said.
"That's leading to crews having to come from towns like Rochester, Inglewood, Castlemaine, Heathcote to respond to serious incidents in Bendigo because the Bendigo crews just aren't available.
"What we're seeing is a vacuum. Crews are going from small towns into Bendigo and never coming out because Bendigo just doesn't have the resources needed to cover its population."
Mr Hill said it took crews 25 minutes to respond to a callout in Bendigo last week.
"Members are telling us they're scared to be living in Bendigo because if their family ever needs an ambulance they worry they would not be able to get one," he said.
"That's not a comfortable thought to have in your mind while you're responding to calls yourself."
Ambulance Victoria Loddon Mallee regional director Michael Georgiou said the issues were caused by peaks and troughs in activity.
"I'm confident we are well-resourced in Bendigo," he said.
"We've seen a surge in workload since the easing of COVID-19 restrictions but I'm confident the staff resourcing we have is still able to meet demand."
He said staffing had been increased to deal with a statewide increase in callouts.
"There's a number of medical issues that have been dormant during the isolation period that people have been nursing, and if you look at it from a statewide perspective we've seen a massive increase in presentations," he said.
Shadow Victorian health minister Georgie Crozier said it was up to the State Government to fix the problem.
"It's all very well to trumpet the hospital build but if you don't have the personnel and the right resources on the ground to assist the very people you need to care for, it means nothing," she said.
"There is a real problem and Daniel Andrews needs to fix it."
