{"id":9597,"date":"2026-05-12T04:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/9597\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T04:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:18:09","slug":"multiple-sclerosis-patient-spends-night-at-adelaide-hospital-waiting-for-an-access-taxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/9597\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple sclerosis patient spends night at Adelaide hospital waiting for an access taxi"},"content":{"rendered":"

A multiple sclerosis patient says he waited three hours for an access cab, only to be told in the middle of the night one would not be available, forcing him to spend the night at an Adelaide emergency room.<\/p>\n

Jesse Frick told 891 ABC Adelaide he was leaving the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Adelaide’s western suburbs about 10:30pm on Sunday after receiving treatment.<\/p>\n

The singer-songwriter, who uses a wheelchair, said he booked a ride through Access Taxis, but he soon received a text message that there had been a delay.<\/p>\n

He said he rang the company back three times in the next three hours, only to finally be told no taxis were available.<\/p>\n

“By about 1:30am, I called them back again to say it still hasn’t come, and then they said, actually, there are no taxis in Adelaide, sorry,” Mr Frick said.<\/p>\n

“I wish they’d told me at the beginning \u2014 it would have been easier to organise something. But no, they waited till then to say there are no taxis there.<\/p>\n

“And they said, ‘Look, we can call up a driver and try and wake one up \u2026 we’ll try our best to do that.'”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jesse Frick says he waited three hours for an access taxi. (Facebook)<\/p>\n

Mr Frick said nurses gave him a blanket while he waited in the hospital’s waiting room and later were able to provide him with a cubicle in the emergency department where he had treatment earlier.<\/p>\n

“Beds are a scarce commodity in hospitals at times, so I’m taking up a bed that I don’t want, this might be a bed that someone else needs as well,” he said.<\/p>\n

The patient said he went through a “rollercoaster of emotions” and was exhausted waiting on a cold night.<\/p>\n

“I’m thinking the longest I’ve ever had to wait is maybe about 45 minutes, but nothing like this … I’ve definitely broke some records I’ll give it that,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Frick said he originally planned to stay home until a surgery scheduled for Wednesday but he has since been re-admitted into hospital.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Access Taxis, which is operated by Suburban Taxis, said they were unable to provide a response to Mr Frick’s case.<\/p>\n

Passenger’s experience not uncommon<\/p>\n

SA Transport Minister Joe Szakacs said it was “disappointing” to hear of Mr Frick’s “poor experience ordering an access taxi”.<\/p>\n

The state government brought in a range of reforms to the industry last year, such as banning passengers from requesting specific access taxi drivers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The SA government says there have been more access taxis on the road than last year. (ABC News: Alice Pavlovic)<\/p>\n

“Average wait times for all access taxis users was eight minutes in March of this year and there were 10 per cent more vehicles on the road during dedicated hours compared to the same time last year,” Mr Szakacs said.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve also recently expanded the number of subsidised trips from 80 to 100 in any six-month period for SATSS [South Australian Transport Subsidy Scheme] card holders. This is the first increase in more than two decades.”<\/p>\n

Advocate Hugo Siu, who also operates his own access taxi, said he was “heartbroken” to hear of Mr Frick’s experience but said such an incident was “not a one-off”.<\/p>\n

“This is not a one-off or just happened in one day,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Siu says Mother’s Day is the second busiest day for access taxis “because everyone wants to have breakfast with the family, having a dinner \u2026 getting out of the nursing home or getting out of the hospital”.<\/p>\n

He called for further incentives to get more access cab drivers on the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A multiple sclerosis patient says he waited three hours for an access cab, only to be told in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10821,10817,395,10822,10823,10816,10824,10820,6218,10819,10818],"class_list":{"0":"post-9597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-adelaide","8":"tag-access-cab","9":"tag-access-taxi","10":"tag-adelaide","11":"tag-delay","12":"tag-hugo-siu","13":"tag-jesse-frick","14":"tag-joe-szakacs","15":"tag-ms","16":"tag-multiple-sclerosis","17":"tag-qeh","18":"tag-queen-elizabeth-hospital"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}