50 Victorians are dying each year because ambulance crews can’t reach them in time, ambulance crews have claimed.

On 900 hundred occasions last year, ambulances called to emergencies took at least 20 minutes to respond, according to documents obtained under Freedom of Information by the Herald Sun.

The worst delays happen 20 km from the city and beyond, where ambulance services are thinnest, the newspaper reported.

Sunbury was the worst hit with 60 delays. Other black spots included Melton with 49 delays; Pakenham with 28; Werribee with 22; Healesville with 20 and Cranborne, Lilydale and Mornington with 16. The situation is so bad that paramedics said that residents in some outlying suburbs should consider moving if they suffer a serious condition that could require urgent care.

Other paramedics said they could not guarantee residents on the city fringe they could reach their homes within 12 minutes – the optimum time required to save a life. Of the 910 patients forced to wait 20 minutes or more –; 325 waited at least 25 minutes; 96 waited half an hour or more and nine waited for more than 40 minutes.

Patients included those suffering from heart attacks, strokes, car accidents and pregnancy complications.

Figures show last financial year that the Metropolitan Ambulance Service (MAS) missed its target of responding to 90 percent of all Code One emergencies within 14 minutes. The average wait stretched to 15 minutes. Healesville, which dealt with 202 emergency calls in the first three months, recorded 90 percent response times of 29 minutes in January; 28 minutes in February and 27 minutes in March – with 20 cases taking even longer.

In January the 90 percent Code One response for the Coldstream-based ambulance was 35 minutes with two calls taking even longer. Other major ambulance black spots include Gladysville – 32 minutes in February; Cockatoo – 27 minutes in January; Portsea – 22 minutes in January and Emerald 20 minutes in January.

These figures are unacceptable considering it takes three minutes for the brain to start dying if you stop breathing. Paramedics have said the lack of local resources – particularly in growth areas – verges on the criminally negligent.

Earlier this year I met concerned residents from the Kinglake area in Parliament. They are desperate for a new ambulance station but have had no luck in persuading Bronwyn Pike of the urgency of their needs.