Vic patient dies during hospital transfer THE Victorian coroner has been urged to investigate a man's death while being moved between Melbourne hospitals as the state deals with what the opposition calls a health system in crisis. Paramedics took the 71-year-old man to the Frankston emergency department for chest pain, but he was forced to wait on an ambulance trolley for two hours, says paramedic and union delegate Danny Hill. When his chest pain worsened, hospital staff placed him in a resuscitation cubicle and paramedics left. The man then suffered a heart attack, but for unknown reasons hospital staff transferred him to Monash hospital instead of treating him there, Mr Hill told reporters on Tuesday. The patient was being driven by ambulance with a doctor's escort when he died en route to the next hospital. Mr Hill said it is unheard of for a patient that unstable to be transferred. Comment was sought from Frankston Hospital. State Labor called for a coronial inquest into the June incident on Tuesday, saying it is another example of a health system in crisis. "You've got patients waiting on stretches inside the hospitals but there aren't the doctors or nurses to treat the patients," deputy opposition leader James Merlino told reporters. He said the state government has cut the health budget by $826 million over two years, causing a crisis in staffing. Mr Hill said incidents of "ramping" - where ambulances sit idle at hospital emergency departments waiting to offload patients - is a huge problem. There are nights where we literally have 10 trucks at almost every hospital, or almost every hospital you try to load to is on bypass. It's beyond a joke," he told ABC Radio. Health Minister David Davis said there have been challenges with ambulance transfer times. "We certainly concede freely there's a specific problem at Frankston and one or two other emergency departments around the metro area too," Mr Davis told ABC Radio. He said hospital and ambulance service funding had increased significantly, with $40 million pledged for a new Frankston emergency department. The state opposition has asked the coroner to investigate other health deaths, too, including a Ballarat woman who died in her driveway last year after waiting six hours for an ambulance. A spokesman for Peninsula Health, which operate Frankston Hospital, said an internal review had begun into the matter and would be assisted by a professor from another hospital. "Peninsula Health regrets the outcome for the patient and is mindful of the distress the family is experiencing," the spokesman said. He said the review would be completed as quickly as possible.