October 30, 2026 — 7:45pm
Victoria’s sickest mental health patients are waiting more than a year for a hospital bed and ambulances are reaching priority response targets in just 66 per cent of cases as state parliament’s annual “dump day” reveals the dire state of our health system.
The revelations were contained within some of the 192 annual reports and reviews tabled to parliament on Friday afternoon, part of the government’s yearly tradition – which has been criticised for reducing scrutiny on unfavourable documents.
Dump day slay: It is an annual tradition for the government to release masses of reports on one day to shirk scrutiny. Penny Stephens The practice has been criticised by integrity advocates, who say deliberately holding back reports until they can all be published at once has no place in a healthy democracy.
“Releasing hundreds of reports at once, particularly late on a Friday before a long weekend, acts as a smokescreen and limits accountability,” said Transparency International chief executive Clancy Moore.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Health Victoria’s health and emergency services are under intense pressure from the state’s growing and ageing population.
Ambulances are missing key response targets, with just 66 per cent of critical code 1 emergencies responded to within 15 minutes.
This is significantly below the benchmark of 85 per cent, but a 4 per cent improvement on the previous year.
Ramping also continues to be a problem at the state’s hospitals. Only 71 per cent of patients were transferred from ambulances to emergency departments within 40 minutes, missing the target of 80 per cent.
Ambulance Victoria met its 15-minute response time benchmark for code 1 emergencies just 66 per cent of the time. Wayne Taylor Ambulance Victoria revealed that it was exposed to “significant liquidity risk” and had just seven days of available cash, or $30.9 million, in reserves.
Triple Zero Victoria is also feeling the heat. Just 80 per cent of code 1 ambulance cases were dispatched within the 150-second benchmark, against a bench
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