Tasmania Told ‘No Ambulance’ 17,000 Times

Australians in Tasmania who rang Triple Zero were told no ambulance was available nearly 17,000 times in 2025 – 26 (about 46 calls a day), according to health-department figures obtained by the state Labor opposition and reported by the ABC.

“Delayed activations,” counted when a vehicle takes three minutes or longer to be dispatched, rose 30 percent on the year before. Total Triple Zero calls rose 6 percent, to 115,735. Median response times showed no marked improvement in any region over two years.

Rosie Maddock, 75, fell in a bathroom at a pathology clinic in Glenorchy, a 15-minute drive from the Royal Hobart Hospital, in early May. She waited three hours on a concrete floor. The injury left bruising and blood clots; she spent three weeks in hospital. “My life wasn’t in danger, but I don’t think it helped my situation at all,” she said. “It’s a dreadful thing.”

Labor health spokeswoman Sarah Lovell called the numbers “deeply concerning” and said people should be able to trust that an ambulance exists when they need one. She said the figures showed a Liberal “ramping ban” promised at the 2024 election had failed. That policy was to move patients off ambulances into emergency departments within 60 minutes, later tightening to 45. Health and Community Services Union secretary Robbie Moore said the government had “effectively withdrawn” from the next stage. “We know every day here at the Royal they fail to get even 70 percent of ambulances away within an hour.” He blamed hospital bed block for leaving crews stuck and Triple Zero staff unable to send cars, including, he said, in “life-or-death” cases. He wanted more allied health, more paramedics and faster discharge.

Health Minister Bridget Archer pointed to demand. “If you call an ambulance and you need an ambulance, you will get an ambulance,” she said. Calls are triaged by clinical need; a wait, she said, may mean a crew is with someone sicker. She added that the government is still committed to the ramping protocol. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Foundation has taken the state to the Tasmanian Industrial Commission to block that protocol.

Ramping – a patient left in a parked ambulance because the hospital cannot take them, takes that vehicle off the next job. The new count measures how often the system already has nothing to send.