According to the State Opposition, new figures reveal that hundreds of ambulances were averted from Melbourne hospitals in a three-month period last year, which indicates that the Victorian Government has put lives in jeopardy.

The data shows that only one of the six hospitals met the performance criterion for accepting ambulance cases in the period.

The opposition released information on Sunday that was gained under Freedom of Information which disclosed serious shortage in beds and overflowing emergency departments.

The Victorian Government dismissed the figures for the July-September period of 2009 as "scaremongering".

Opposition Health Spokesman, David Davis condemned the Government for not having released the figures itself and for "fudging" the true degree of the problem by not comprising so-called alert system `diversions' of ambulances as bypasses.

Ambulance diversions take place when ambulances are turned away because an emergency department is occupied or unable to take more patients, either in official bypasses or under Hospital Early Warning Status (HEWS), an alert system, which informs ambulances that the emergency department is diverting cases.

Bypasses occur most often at the Royal Melbourne and Western Hospital at Footscray, where ambulances were turned away in about 9% of cases, three times the Government-set benchmark of 3%.

While the figures at the Sunshine, Eastern Box Hill and Maroondah hospitals were 4-6%, the Angliss Hospital Ferntree Gully was below the yardstick 0.92%.

Mr. Davis told reporters on Sunday, "The patient speeding towards the hospital is diverted to a different and more distant hospital, and their health is potentially compromised by those diversions".