The Blue Mountains Vietnam Veterans Memorial Day Service was forced to end early on Sunday, August 14 following a medical emergency which placed the pressures facing our ambulance service starkly in the spotlight.
Organisers decided to end the service following the wreath laying after a cadet in the catafalque party collapsed and required medical attention.
While it took almost half an hour before an ambulance arrived a spokesperson for the NSW Ambulance Service said Springwood Ambulance Station was "appropriately staffed at the time, and crews were attending to higher priority emergencies".
"An ambulance arrived on scene within 26 minutes," they said.
The Gazette understands the first ambulance to arrive came from Richmond while two ambulances that arrived shortly after were at Nepean Hospital.
The NSW Ambulance Service did not answer the Gazette's questions about where the ambulances came from and if they were ramping at Nepean Hospital.
The service spokesperson said call takers triaged the patient at the scene at the war memorial and remained in constant contact with a registered nurse and St John Ambulance volunteers.
"The patient recovered quickly and declined to be taken to hospital," the spokesperson said.
'Not good enough'
Blue Mountains MP Trish Doyle was one of the local politicians at the service and said the wait for an ambulance to arrive was "not good enough".
"Obviously our paramedics are under the pump and I suspect that our local services were frustratingly waiting at Nepean to offload patients," she said.
"This was a very serious and public example of the need for critical care services in our Blue Mountains. Our community did not have ambulance cover at that time. It is not good enough.
"We absolutely need more paramedics and ambulances, but more significantly we need extra nurses, health workers and beds at both Katoomba and Nepean [hospitals]. Safe nurse to patient ratios are required to provide our community with the care they deserve," she said.
The NSW Ambulance spokesperson said the service has received funding for 2,128 staff, which includes 1,858 paramedics, 210 support staff, 52 nurses and eight doctors, after a $1.76 billion boost announced as part of the NSW Government's 2022-23 budget.