A Victorian Ambulance report has revealed that ambulance response times to cardiac arrests have improved to 7.5 minutes – the fastest response time ever for the State ambulance service.
The Minister for Ambulance Services, Jenny Mikakos joined paramedics to release the Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry report.
“Despite paramedics treating a record 6,519 cardiac arrest patients, Victoria remains one of the safest places in the world to have a cardiac arrest, with a 39 per cent survival rate,” Ms Mikakos said.
“A total of 365 people were discharged from hospital after surviving a cardiac arrest,” she said
“More bystanders are helping save lives before paramedics arrive with a record 97 patients receiving defibrillation compared to 82 last year.”
Ms Mikakos said that in the past decade, bystander CPR rates had increased from 48 per cent to 62 per cent and public defibrillators usage had soared three-fold.
She said the latest data showed ambulances managed the largest number of emergency cases for the July to September quarter, with 78,130 ‘Code 1’ call-outs across the State.
“Our dedicated paramedics managed more than 8,300 extra callouts in the September quarter, arriving within the benchmark of 15 minutes for 83.3 per cent of Code 1 calls,” Ms Mikakos said.
