Emergency services faced with an unprecedented health crisis they could not have fully understood moved swiftly to curb the fallout of last year's thunderstorm asthma event that claimed nine lives, a preliminary review has found.
Tony Pearce, the Inspector-General for Emergency Services said many more lives could have been lost had it not been for the quick actions of the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) , Ambulance Victoria (AV) the Health Department and hospitals.
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What is thunderstorm asthma.
University of Western Australia's Nobel Laureate, Professor Barry Marshall, explains thunderstorm asthma.
"It was an almost exceptional response based on the fact nobody knew what they were responding to," he said.
"All of the resources that could be brought to bear were.
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"It is tragic, nine people have passed away as a result of this but were it not for the way the agencies worked within the system and responded on the night I think that figure could have been a lot higher."
The report confirms the event that caused thousands of Victorians to experience respiratory problems and suddenly require urgent medical care on November 21 and 22 last year was unprecedented both in terms of its impact on the public but also the rapid onset of demand on the state's health service.
Health minister Jill Hennessy has flagged a major overhaul of how the health department manages and escalates emergency situations in the future.
Internationally, it found only one previous recorded death to thunderstorm asthma, in 2002 in the UK.
At its peak, Melbourne's fatal thunderstorm asthma crisis saw four times the number of calls to emergency services than were recorded on Black Saturday.
Paramedics responded to 2036 call outs across Melbourne on the night of the freak event – more than half for patients in need of urgent care.
"It is important to note that at the time of the event occurring there was no formal or approved system for predicting and/or warning that the storms and non-meteorological factors could create a public health emergency," the report states.
"While demand for ESTA, AV and hospitals stretched or exceeded capacity, [the Inspector General]Â commends the commitment and flexibility of the emergency management sector and the health system in responding to the event and minimising adverse impacts on the community."
However, it also notes that "limited communication and information sharing" within agencies hampered the spread of information about what might be happening as the crisis unfolded, and emergency response plans were "not fully activated".Â
The crisis was being managed remotely on November 21 and the State Emergency Management Centre and Ambulance Emergency Operations Centre had not been activated.
Because formal emergency incident arrangements were not in place on the night of November 21, "this hampered the overall response to the event, including the timely development and distribution of appropriate messaging to the community," the report states.
The state government has announced a commitment of $700,000 for research into the event and $300,000 to expand the state's current pollen monitoring network.
Agencies will go to tender for monitoring at five sites from October.
Mr Pearce said it had created opportunities to find better ways to manage a health crisis of that scale and speed in the future.
The final report is due in April.