THE beleaguered Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) has been widely speculated to receive a significant funding boost in the State Government’s budget in May, after being heavily criticised in recent months due to a series of patient deaths.

Allegations of exposed systemic failures and long delays for Victorians needing help led to a Victorian Government commissioned review in October 2021 into how the ESTA delivered its triple zero services.

Former Victorian Police chief commissioner, Graham Ashton AM, led the independent review which is believed to have been finalised and handed to the government.

However, to date, details of the review’s findings and recommendations have not been released, with speculation mounting, that details of alleged failures might not be released until mid-year.

Emergency Services shadow minister, Brad Battin said the delay in releasing the review’s findings was another case of the government covering up its mismanagement with a tick-box review that won’t deliver the answers Victorians deserve.

Mr Battin said in any case, the independent review lacked integrity because frontline call-taking staff were sidelined from the review process.

He said he had confirmation that only 10 triple zero emergency call-taking and dispatch staff from a total of 90 employees were selected to participate in the review, which reflected a setup to fail.

Furthermore, he stated he believed the staff that were allowed to participate were hand-picked by the ESTA, revealing a process lacking in honesty and transparency.

Shadow health minister, Georgie Crozier has been consistently critical of the government and said it has over-promised and under-delivered critical health services.

Ms Crozier said the crisis was particularly evident during the pandemic with elective surgery waitlist blowouts, Code Yellow and Code Brown hospital shutdowns, and staffing shortages.

“Years of mismanagement and underfunding by the Andrews Labor Government is leading to a system in crisis that is worsening by the day,” she said.

Ms Crozier said unmanageably high demand on Victoria’s hospital workforce, ambulance ramping, and a neglected triple zero call service, were threatening the lives of critically sick Victorians every single day because of systemic failures and dire pressure on the state’s health workforce.

“These shortages will take years to reverse and requires a comprehensive plan,” she said.

Ambulance Victoria (AV) response times are recorded for the purposes of gauging effective delivery of Ambulance services and are measured using the time between receipt of the triple zero call and the arrival of the first AV at the scene.

For the quarter October 1 to December 31, 2021, Southern Grampians Shire recorded that 60-70 per cent of Code 1 triple zero calls (lights and sirens required) were responded to in under 15 minutes - relatively unchanged compared to the same quarter in the previous year.