Perhaps my understanding here is lacking, but that doesn't sound good at all. Feels like if someone has some sort of cardiac event, or, worse, isn't breathing, by the time the ambulance gets there, they'll be dead, with too much brain death for any resuscitation effort to be worth it.

Yes, I believe your understanding is lacking. Ambulances are dispatched for other medical emergencies as well. Compared to many other parts of Australia and even the world, the response time statistics claimed are very good.

Sadly, A heart attack can be fatal even with immediate medical intervention at a hospital. A defibrillator can only correct certain kinds of abnormal heart electrical activity.

In my experience as soon as the dispatcher understands it's a medical problem, has confirmed the address and that the patient is not breathing, they will begin talking the caller through performing CPR.

I suppose if I was concerned about it, the burden would be on me to move somewhere closer to the hospital or wherever the ambulance stages between calls. Unfortunqtely, there's always a chance no ambulance is available or that an accident has blocked the road.

How soon do you believe assistance should arrive?

For reference in Los Angeles, a notoriously traffic filled metropolitan area, the average response time for a life threatening ambulance call is 6 minutes and 14 seconds and 98.8% in under 15 minutes

Melbourne is one of the largest cities in the world by urban sprawl. It is very spread out. I live 85 km from Melbourne CBD, and am officially still considered part of Melbourne. Well, there isn't an "official" boundary per se. My council is considered a council of Melbourne, but I'm also the last suburb in this direction. (Yes, Melbourne's Covid lockdowns applied to us.)

When my wife and I ended up delivering my youngest daughter at home. (Because they'd sent us away from hospital 30 minutes earlier). I think the ambulance must have taken around 10-15 minutes to arrive. Granted, I don't have a great memory of it, lots of Adrenalin, a bit of a blur. They arrived in time to cut the cord. Fortunately, the phone dispatcher stayed on the line and provided me with instructions the entire time.

Just to clarify, I think the dispatch time was reasonable, I'm not at all upset with the ambulance service. The hospital — different story.

P.S. My daughter is 2 now. 100% fine, fortunately.

Cardiac events don’t usually work like that. You could, for example, get permanent damage if your heart attack isn’t treated within 30 minutes (as a guideline, the circumstances vary heavily). Even an aneurism doesn’t often act quicker than 20 minutes. But ya, sub 10 minute response times only happen in a hospital, sub 1 minute response times in intensive care, etc…

Still, you feel like you are having a heart attack, call 911 (in the US) right away. The main time killer is probably just you recognizing that you need help (vs the time it takes to get help once called).

Someone I used to know was found dead in bed with hid iPad showing he had been browsing for "what are the symptoms of a heart attack"...

The average response time is considerably shorter than 10 minutes in many metro areas. In Los Angeles the average is 6 minutes and 14 seconds, with 98.8% of responses in under 15 minutes.

As my medico wife explained it to me, you have about 1 minute after your heart stops before you start having permanent brain damage. Unless you live inside a hospital your risk of surviving a major heart attack at home is less than 20% at the best of times (and in fact seems to be about 10% or less in USA on average on some quick research).

How exactly do you expect an ambulance to be able to reach any part of a county in under 12 minutes??

I live in Merri-bek. 50%. 3km north of Melbourne CBD.

I can drive to an ED within 3-5 minutes.

This report doesn’t make me feel good.