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WA’s Premier Mark McGowan on Wednesday announced an overhaul, planting managers to look over St John’s shoulder.
“We’re going to embed two senior health department officers, including a very senior doctor at St John and two senior police,” he said.
The government also plans to use firefighter “assistance” under strict instruction when the system is overwhelmed, an option available since the start of COVID-19 planning but yet to be used.
“What will happen over the weekend is 48 firefighters will be trained in how to operate ambulances and as of next Tuesday, 48 firefighters will be out on the road with our paramedics,” said St John CEO Michelle Fyfe.
“The agony she must have been in,” Paul Wild said.
“Just all alone, no one to be with her”.
9News can reveal an elderly Bellevue man also died of a heart attack on Sunday, after waiting two hours for paramedics
At 8.15am, the man aged in his 80s called triple zero, complaining of debilitating abdominal pain.
He was triaged as a priority three, meaning an ambulance should have arrived within an hour.
Instead after almost double that time, the St John call centre rang the man for a welfare check but he was by then experiencing chest pains.
He was upgraded to priority one but when paramedics arrived, he had not survived a heart attack.