Michelle Viney said her “happy, bubbly, loyal, loving son” Jayden Holberton died while waiting up to 30 minutes for an ambulance at Christie Downs on September 16, after his girlfriend called for help because he was suffering severe chest pain.

SA Ambulance Service this afternoon extended “deepest sympathies to Mrs Viney for the tragic loss of her son”, however said the wait time was less than 16 minutes.

Holding a photo of her son, Viney this morning told reporters: “This is Jayden. He is a person… he’s my son, he was a grandson, he was an uncle, he was a big brother and a little brother. He should not have had to wait for 30 minutes to get an ambulance to try and save his life.”

“I don’t want this to be anybody else’s child, relative, loved one,” she said.

Jayden Holberton. Photo: Supplied

“Something needs to be done about the ramping. And not just told to stop doing it, something needs to be done to fix our health system.”

On the night her son was kept waiting for an ambulance, the paramedics union tweeted a photo of ambulances lined up in the Flinders Medical Centre emergency department carpark.

“15 uncovered emergencies,” the Ambulance Employees Association tweeted.

“People with life threatening conditions, no ambulances on the way.”

This is FMC right now.

With 3 more ambulances out of shot.

With 15 uncovered emergencies. People with life threatening conditions, no ambulance on the way.

Please stay safe tonight SA. Our ambulance service & health system certainly isn’t. #istandwithourambos #saparli pic.twitter.com/G1wmRaBK2R

— Ambulance Employees Association (SA) (@aeasa1981) September 16, 2021

SA Health chief executive Chris McGowan last month issued legal directions ordering faster offloading of patients from ambulances and other measures in an attempt to improve ramping.

It included an order requiring 75 per cent of patients in ambulances to be transferred to emergency departments within 30 minutes of arrival – and no longer than 60 minutes.

The State Opposition this morning said it had been leaked statistics showing only 36.5 per cent of patients had been offloaded at Flinders Medical Centre’s ED within 30 minutes during the first week of December.

The Opposition – which is highlighting health as a key election battleground – said the best day during that week was December 1, with 46 per cent of patients transferred within half an hour, and the worst day was December 4 with 25 per cent.

“Michelle’s story, Jayden’s story is a human face to the tragedy that is the ramping crisis that we have here in South Australia,” Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas said.

“Their family’s story in no small way is a function of incredibly bad policy decisions that the Marshall Liberal Government is taking including an $11 million cut to the ambulance service only a few short years ago.

“Instead of investing in our hospitals and ambulance service, the Marshall Liberal Government decided to wave around a legal direction in a desperate attempt to stop ramping,”

“Clearly, their legal direction has failed.

“Indeed, no legal direction can address a fundamental lack of resourcing, which is the root cause of the state’s ramping crisis.”

Malinauskas accused the Government of refusing to release the October and November monthly ramping figures and said the ramping “dashboard” on the SA Health website had “now been frozen for 10 weeks”.

Michelle Viney said she will never know if her son would have survived had an ambulance arrived sooner but he should not have had to wait so long.

“There’s no promise that he might have survived but 30 minutes compared to three minutes is a big big difference,” she said.

“This is not right, this is totally wrong and it needs to be fixed.

“I want this to help save somebody else’s child, somebody else’s relative. I have nothing but respect, nothing but my most utmost respect for the ambulance, the paramedics, the job they do, the nurses, the doctors, they all do an amazing job but our government is holding them behind.

“They are causing the ramping and the night that we lost Jayden he was a statistic. I don’t want him to become another statistic. I want him to be able to try and help make a change.”

She urged others to share their stories.

“I want everybody that’s got a story to tell, please share your story, no matter how big, no matter how small,” she said.

“Our stories need to be heard. We need to keep telling our story. Maybe one day we might just hit a conscience of one of these government people. Maybe, just maybe, they might change the big, big problem that we have here happening today.”

Viney said when paramedics finally arrived at her son’s house, “he had become unresponsive and then he stopped breathing so he basically died as they got there and they couldn’t bring him back to us”.

She said she had been left with “overwhelming grief”.

“My whole family has just been devastated to lose somebody so young,” she said.

Viney described her son as a car fanatic who had loved to travel before the COVID pandemic closed borders.

“He was a happy, bubbly, loyal, loving son,” she said.

“He was just everyone’s favourite friend. He had so many mates. He was amazing. He was my boy and he was amazing.”

She said he had experienced some chest and arm pain in the week before his death but didn’t go to a doctor.

“At 26 I think he thought he was invincible,” she said.

“The Coroner has told us that he died of a fatty heart condition. Even if the ambulance did get there on time, maybe they might have been able to save him, maybe not. We’ll never ever get to know that though. We’ll never know if he had a chance.”

In a statement an SA Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “SAAS can confirm that a Triple Zero (000) call was received for a patient reporting ongoing leg and chest pain.”

“The patient’s call was appropriately triaged as a Priority 2 (light and sirens response) and an emergency ambulance was immediately dispatched. Paramedics arrived on scene faster than the target response time of 16 minutes, quickly followed by additional senior clinical support,” the spokesperson said.

“Sadly, the patient went into cardiac arrest whilst under the care of SAAS and resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful. SAAS, as would be expected, has reviewed this case and confirms that triage, response and treatment were appropriate.

“Our crews care deeply about the service they provide to the community and cases like Jayden’s are extremely distressing for all. We extend our deepest sympathies to Mrs Viney for the tragic loss of her son.”

Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said clinicians were “rightly outraged” at the ramping legal direction issued by authorities, while “ignoring their calls for more resourcing”.

“On Steven Marshall’s watch, ramping has increased by 576 per cent,” he said.

“But behind these numbers are real stories of real people suffering medical emergencies and forced to wait outside a hospital or left waiting for an ambulance to arrive.”

In a statement, Health Minister Stephen Wade said “the problem with Pete and Labor is they have no positive plans for South Australia”.

“Ten months ago Labor said that they were going to release ‘a comprehensive plan to address ramping’ and South Australians have seen nothing from them,” he said.

“South Australians remember that it was Pete Malinauskas and Labor who delivered Transforming Health and brought ramping to our state.”

Wade said Labor’s clam “that the Marshall Government hasn’t invested in our hospitals and ambulance service is nothing but lies”.

“We are upgrading every suburban hospital and expanding almost every metropolitan emergency department, as well as several peri-urban EDs,” he said.

“In addition, we are delivering a massive 392-bed capacity expansion as part of our COVID-ready plan, and Local Health Networks are already reporting positive impacts from these beds coming online.

“We are hiring an additional 74 full-time equivalent ambulance officers, doubling the intake for paramedics to 96 interns, and hiring more Triple Zero call takers.

“While Labor remains focused on selective negativity, we have seen significant improvements in the time ambulances are spending on the ramp and patient flow at our hospitals in recent weeks and we are focused on supporting our health services to continue their good work.”

SA Health defended the legal directions issued by McGowan.

In a statement a spokesperson said: “These directions were made in consultation with Local Health Network CEOs and senior clinical leads, to create a consistent approach to how our hospital system manages periods of high demand.”

“These directions came into effect on Thursday 2 December and our most recent figures show that wait times are trending downwards,” the spokesperson said.

“The directions set a target for our Local Health Networks to meet, and work is underway across our entire hospital system on a range of initiatives at a local level, to improve patient flow.

“The new direction is being supported by the new statewide Care and Coordination Centre, which launched last week at the Tonsley Innovation District.

“The Care and Coordination Centre provides a point of contact and better coordination of patient journeys across the health system as well as better visibility of alternative care pathways that are available to ambulance patients.”

The Australian Medical Association last month expressed shock that ramping was now occurring at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, after the paramedics union tweeted a photo of ambulances waiting outside.

The Women’s and Children’s Health Network this morning issued a statement saying an extra eight medical staff would be added to the paediatric emergency department to boost capacity.

“We are pleased that our offer of an additional eight medical FTE has been accepted by the Paediatric Emergency Department (PED) which includes additional Senior Medical Practitioner to provide a 7-day service during the evening which is the busiest time for the Emergency Department,” the statement said.

“We will also be adding an additional registered medical officer and several new senior registrar positions to support peak demand as part of the eight new positions.

“We are committed to delivering the highest level of care to our patients, and every child who presents to our Paediatric Emergency Department (PED) will receive the treatment they need.”

The WCHN said it had also commissioned an external safety and quality review of the department.