File photo. The patients were treated at Hardmission Festival before being taken to hospital. Photo: 123RF
By Mikaela Ortolan and Andi Yu for the ABC
Eight people are in a critical condition following a suspected drug overdose at a rave in Melbourne on Saturday night.
Mobile intensive care ambulance paramedics working at the Hardmission Festival, which took place at Flemington, treated the patients before they were conveyed to hospital.
"What appears to have happened is quite a number of people have overdosed or had a reaction to an MDMA derivative drug," Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said.
He said seven of the patients were placed into an induced coma and required breathing tubes.
"It's quite a high-level treatment that our paramedics perform and it's reserved for our most time-critical patients and patients in life-threatening health conditions," he said.
"It's probably quite rare that we would see this amount of people needing such aggressive treatment."
Ambulance Victoria said the patients were transported to several hospitals including Sunshine Hospital, Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Austin Hospital, Footscray Hospital and St Vincent's Hospital.
In a statement Victoria Police said it was "not aware of any critical health incidents during the event however are now making enquiries and an investigation has commenced".
The event organiser has been contacted for comment.
Calls for better drug education
According to Hill, Ambulance Victoria were short-staffed on the night and had to send out a text message to get additional paramedics to assist.
He said paramedics treat patients for drug-related issues regularly at rave like parties and that MDMA was one of the most common drugs they saw.
"It's no secret that these drugs circulate at rave parties," he said.
"Often there are a lot of other chemicals and other medications mixed in with it and clearly whatever people have taken have had quite a negative effect."
He said it highlights the need for better drug education "whether it's pill checking or pill testing".
"It's just deadly," Hill said.
"These drugs aren't made in a batch of seven or eight so it's terrifying to think that these drugs are out there and could do enormous harm to a lot of other people."
MP and Greens spokesperson for drug harm reduction Aiv Puglielli agreed more needed to be done.
"The current approach, the current war on drugs mentality and how we deal with the issue of people taking illicit substances puts young people's lives at risk," he said.
Pill testing is not currently available in Victoria.
"We know in jurisdictions like the ACT, where people are provided access to services like pill testing, that there is a cohort of people who choose not to take their substance because they are provided with health information that makes them aware of what it is they are about to put into their body," Puglielli said.
"They are more aware of the risk and they are more aware of the dosage of what it is that they're taking.
"Summer festival season is upon us, we know that people will be taking drugs, we must do more to keep them safer."
- This story was first published by the ABC.
