Authorities are investigating the death of a man who waited more than three hours on an ambulance stretcher for treatment at a regional hospital in the Australian state of Victoria.

The 72-year-old man went into cardiac arrest and died on Monday afternoon after waiting about three-and-a-half hours for treatment at the Bairnsdale Regional Health Service in East Gippsland.

The Guardian Australia understands the man had been taken out of the ambulance and into the hospital at the time of his death.

He was considered a low-acuity case, but his condition deteriorated as he was left waiting in a corridor for a bed to become available in the emergency department.

Bairnsdale Regional Health Service and Ambulance Victoria are conducting an investigation into the death.

Victoria Minister for Police Lisa Neville said staff shortages due to COVID-19 have left the state’s health system “under huge pressure.”

About 1,700 health workers were isolating on Tuesday, either having tested positive for the virus or as a close contact of an infected person, she said.

“We also have had a number of staff who have left the service just because of the last couple of years,” Neville said.

“We’re very conscious that our regional and rural hospitals are as under pressure as our metropolitan hospitals. We’ll have this investigation, but we’ll continue to support investment in rural and regional hospitals to make sure that people get the care that they’re entitled to,” she said.

Lawmaker Tim Bull, who represents East Gippsland, said about 10 percent of staff at Bairnsdale hospital were off work due to COVID-19 at the time of the man’s death.

“I know many people who work at the hospital, I know the sort of hours they’ve been working, the stress they’re dealing with and the strict framework of rules they’ve diligently navigated for more than two years — they’re our local heroes,” the Nationals lawmaker said.

“But they can only do so much when the rural health workforce is so underprepared and underresourced by state Labor — even before the massive strain and uncertainty of the pandemic,” he said. “They are just overwhelmed at the moment. Now we’ve got a local family in mourning.”

Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said increased presentations at emergency departments across the state have meant ambulances are forced to wait — or “ramp” — outside hospitals for long periods of time with patients on board.

“There’s ramping every single shift. There is no location where there isn’t ramping happening at some point over the last couple of months,” he said.

Hill said most paramedics were treating patients who had deferred seeing their general practitioner or having regular checkups during lockdowns and are now experiencing more complex or critical problems.

“They’re waiting until they’re critically unwell and then dialing triple zero. It puts much more strain on the system. People who see their doctor regularly probably don’t need an ambulance,” he said.

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