Australia: A great emergency call system

This woman is lucky to have received treatment after two 000 calls for help were directed to the wrong cities. Manunda worker Lance Laverty saw the woman lying beside Anderson St with her head in the gutter about 11.45am on Saturday. He called 000 twice but still had to flag down passing police to get the woman help.

The "stuff up" comes just weeks after a World War II Digger died after waiting more than two hours for an ambulance. "She (the woman) had now been laying in the sun for about 40 minutes," Mr Laverty said. "Imagine if that lady was elderly and having a heart attack or a stroke, what the consequences may have been."

Mr Laverty said he tried to phone Cairns police but eventually hung up and called 000, which transferred his call to Beenleigh police [about 1,000 miles South of Cairns].

"I observed what appeared to be three young men hovering around another person lying on the ground," he said. Mr Laverty said he was reluctant to approach the men, fearing a confrontation, so decided the best action was to call police. After waiting 15 minutes for police to arrive, Mr Laverty again called 000 but was this time transferred to Townsville. [about 200 miles South of Cairns].

"I do not blame the police or QAS, all praise on these people and all other emergency service workers at the coal face, but I blame the system that we keep being told is the best in the world," Mr Laverty said.

A police spokesman last night said when a 000 call was received at a police communication centre experiencing a high volume of emergency calls it was transferred to an available call-taker at another police communications centre. This was the reason calls were diverted from Cairns. The woman was taken to Cairns Base Hospital but her condition is not known.

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