Police ‘increasingly’ called to health incidents due to ambulance crisis, union boss says

Police are increasingly attending health situations which usually “wouldn’t attract a police response” due to the crisis in Victoria’s ambulance service, according to the boss of the Police Association.

A ‘code orange’ was again declared in Melbourne last night due to high demand.

On Wednesday morning, the Rumour File heard police are attending call-outs that would ordinarily be dealt with by paramedics.

In a statement, Ambulance Victoria denied police are being dispatched to triage ambulance patients.

“There are times when both police and ambulance are dispatched to cases that requires both agencies,” an Ambulance Victoria spokesperson said.

“At times paramedics will arrive first and wait for police, and sometimes police arrive first.”

But Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt says police are “increasingly” being called to situations that ordinarily wouldn’t require police.

Most health incidents police are being called to are mental health-related, and while police have always had “a role to play from time to time” in such incidents, Mr Gatt says they’re being called to attend cases they wouldn’t have previously been required for.

“Increasingly what members are telling us is that owing to the absence of adequate numbers of ambulances, for example, police are becoming the primary call to situations that otherwise wouldn’t attract a police response,” he told Neil Mitchell.

Mr Gatt says police are often transporting patients to hospital because of lengthy waits for ambulances.

“The absence of ambulance has meant that police are doing the greatest majority of those transports, and indeed often what they’ll do is they’ll come up on the radio, they’ll ask for an ambulance transport, either it’s not available or they’re waiting hours and hours,” he said.

Press PLAY below to hear police union boss Wayne Gatt on how the healthcare crisis is impacting police