A Tasmanian woman with blood pouring from her mouth claims she was sent a taxi instead of an ambulance when her boyfriend called 000 during her first-ever seizure.
Mia Goody, 20, was having a medical emergency when her boyfriend Josh Tombs dialled for help. The dispatcher’s response shocked him.
“He just said, we can’t really spare an ambulance for you,” Tombs told 7NEWS.
“We’ve got a taxi, though, so that’ll arrive in a few minutes,” he said they told him.
A Department of Health spokesperson told Pulse that Ambulance Tasmania was experiencing significant demand for ambulance responses at the time of the call, which was not assessed as a Priority 1.
“Highly trained clinicians make medical assessments based on the symptoms present and provide the most appropriate response option based on those medical assessments and the resources available,” the spokesperson said.
When asked if sending a taxi was acceptable, Health Minister Bridget Archer said she refused to comment on individual patient circumstances.
“I’m happy to talk to that patient directly, happy to seek further information in relation to that patient, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on an individual patient’s circumstances,” she said.
Opposition Health Minister Sarah Lovell called the response “completely unacceptable”.
Goody was placed on an outpatient waiting list and said she had no answers about what caused her medical emergency.
