A “NEW LOW” exploiting family distress with inaccurate claims is how the State Government has described ambulance waiting time allegations by the Opposition.
The Opposition has attacked Health Minister David Davis over six incidents where paramedics took more than 15 minutes to reach fatal cases, including a man who died at Jan Juc after a cardiac arrest.
But the Government has lashed back, telling the Independent one case involved a suicide where 000 was not phoned until after the person’s body was found.
Opposition health spokesman Gavin Jennings said the government had refused to investigate the six cases, instead taking aim at “hard-working paramedics” and refusing to take the deaths seriously.
“There is a family in Jan Juc who simply want answers, not excuses, but they’re relying on Victoria’s worst-ever health minister,” he said.
“Six families are mourning the loss of a loved one but Mr Davis just wants to play politics.”
The Government slammed Mr Jennings’ claims, saying the Opposition should be ashamed “it has become the public mouthpiece of the militant ambulance union by exploiting cases of family distress in pursuit of a political campaign”.
“There are factual errors in a number of the matters compiled by the union and put forward as
fact by Mr Jennings,” Mr Davis said.
“I remind him that the union has used him to provide specific information about people in remote communities which may well lead to their identification.
“Several of these matters have a deal of sensitivity and I am concerned their public airing will
cause further distress to the families involved.
“Shame on Gavin Jennings if he was aware of this background information and still chose to do the union’s bidding by publicly highlighting it in parliament.”
