Residents of Perth are being warned that there will likely be delays in ambulances responding to emergency calls for the second time in a week.
St John WA issued an “extremely high demand” public alert impacting response times just before 3:30pm Sunday.
“St John is about to alert the public via social media messages that the service is facing extremely high demand for ambulances in the Perth metropolitan area,” St John said in a statement.
“There is likely to be a delay on an ambulance reaching people calling Triple Zero.
“While we appreciate that there is a high level of interest in this message, our priority is to meet patient demand during this time.
The ambulance provider issued a similar alert late Monday afternoon, which remained in place for 13 hours until early Tuesday morning.
St John said the latest warning came as the nonprofit struggled with high levels of absenteeism caused by COVID.
“We are currently experiencing a 20% crew shortage and sporadic high call volumes at the State Operations Center,” St John’s statement said.
“There are currently 30 ambulance paramedics who are on COVID leave today and 18 tonight.”
Ambulance EMTs are St John’s most highly trained emergency responders, with each completing a college degree and additional training in advanced life support.
St John said it was activating less-trained transport doctors to respond to priority 3 and 4 cases – which are generally not life-threatening – and “implementing expanded overtime entitlements to encourage those available to get back on the road”.
Western Australians who do not need life-saving assistance are being urged to avoid calling an ambulance and instead visit a family doctor or an urgent care clinic.
Dialing HealthDirect on 1800 022 222 is also an option.