A WORLD War II Digger had to wait more than two hours for an ambulance the day he died this week.

Changi prison camp survivor Bob Mutton, who lived in the city on Sheridan St, endured a two-hour-and-five-minute wait on Monday while he struggled to breathe.

He died hours after finally arriving at Cairns Base Hospital.

Stretched to the limit, the Queensland Ambulance Service dispatched a vehicle from Kuranda, 25km northwest of Cairns, after Mr Mutton’s first ambulance was diverted to a "higher priority case" of a man having a seizure.

It took 54 minutes for the first ambulance to be dispatched to 88-year-old Mr Mutton. The crew was then diverted four minutes into the job.

After another 71 minutes, the nearest available ambulance arrived from Kuranda.

"We’re appalled … to have to wait more than two hours for an ambulance can’t be acceptable," an upset friend, who did not want to be named, said yesterday.

"The sort of duress Bob would have been under waiting all that time doesn’t bear thinking about.

"This man served his country (and) spent three and half years in Changi prisoner of war camp. He paid his taxes right up to the end and he gets treated like this."

Queensland Ambulance Service assistant commissioner Peter Cahill yesterday confirmed the long wait, blaming it on the number of ambulances delivering patients to Cairns Base Hospital on Monday morning.

"The remaining ambulances in the region were dealing with higher priority call-outs," Mr Cahill said.

"An ambulance was unable to be dispatched until 11.38am. However, four minutes later this ambulance was diverted to a higher priority case."

Mr Mutton’s doctor rang the Far Northern Ambulance’s communications centre on a patient transport line at 10.44am, saying Mr Mutton was "frail, delirious, with laboured breathing".

A worried friend rang the ambulance about 45 minutes later, saying Mr Mutton still had "rather rattly breathing" and asking when help would come. Mr Cahill said the Kuranda ambulance had to be stood down from another job to finally get to Mr Mutton.

Disgusted friends said their mate had been "pretty crook".

"We’ll never know whether a quicker ambulance would have saved him," one friend said.

"But we know he wasn’t treated right. And we’d hate for someone else and someone else’s friends and family to go through that."

Cairns RSL sub-branch president Peter Turner described the long wait as unacceptable.

"It upsets me that this would happen to anyone, veteran or no veteran," Mr Turner said.

"Delays like that are a huge concern."

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