Australian Paramedic Association calls for more rural and regional resources and staff
Paramedic resourcing and workplace issues are being intensified in rural and regional areas like the Southern Tablelands, leaving staff burnt out and patients with delayed care, or even no ambulance in sight.
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Southern Tablelands paramedics are burnt out from working almost 24-hour shifts, and frustrated at having to delay the medical needs of patients due to a lack of resources and staff.
According to the Australian Paramedics Association (APA), the statewide issue led the union to take 24-hour industrial action on Monday for the second time this year, asking the government for pay recognition, more professional pathways and 1500 more paramedics.
APA (NSW) President Chris Kastelan said: “Paramedics signing on (Monday) have refused to travel from their designated station to help plug roster holes elsewhere.
“We’re taking action to demand a better resourced service. We want a fairer workplace for paramedics, and improved coverage and care for our communities.
“We’ll still show up, care for patients, and respond to triple-0 calls. Our action quite deliberately targets under resourcing from NSW Ambulance, without compromising care to patients or communities.”
While classed as a statewide issue, conditions are intensified in rural and regional areas like the Southern Tablelands, according to the APA delegate for southern NSW, Lee Taylor.
“In a lot of smaller stations like Cooma, Yass, Crookwell, overnight they only have on-call staff, so they’ll work all day and then do some call outs overnight and then be too fatigued to do their shift the next day.
“That means someone needs to come and cover from other stations.”
Mr Taylor, a Queanbeyan paramedic, says his station has been getting a lot of calls to fill in at Goulburn Base Hospital specifically, as well as to other areas like Yass and Bungendore.
“Goulburn in particular is quite short staffed at the moment,” Mr Taylor said.
“Goulburn has a minimum of one on-duty crew which is on shift, and then the day shift will go on call.
“And what happens is if the on-call officer calls in sick or if someone else does, and they’re short staffed, and can’t fill that with overtime, then we or Crookwell will go over there.”
Just the other day, a Queanbeyan crew had to complete an eight-hour journey to transfer a patient from Goulburn, he said.
“A Queanbeyan crew was sent to Goulburn to transfer a patient – which happens often given that the hospital has limited services available – and subsequently, the patient had to be transferred from Goulburn to Sydney,” Mr Taylor said.
“It’s a particular problem on night shift because of the fatigue after basically having no sleep for 24 hours.”
While there is a fatigue policy in place for paramedics, stations are limited in what they can do when understaffed.
“When you’re on the road and you’re fatigued, you can only swap with your partner or call a supervisor and say ‘Look I can’t go on, and I’ve just had to pull over on the side of the road or the next nearest station’ and somebody has to come pick them up and take them home,” Mr Taylor said.
Not only are the current conditions affecting paramedics but also patients who have to wait longer to receive their care.
“Transfers can be delayed and it also means that there’s no ambulance or less coverage in Goulburn for that time that it takes to do a transfer.”
Mr Kastelan said that NSW ambulance response times have worsened by more than 40 per cent during the last decade.
“Of comparable states, NSW has the worst paramedic to population ratio, and worst spending per capita,” Mr Kastelan said.
“Something has got to change.”
The APA is also asking for specialist paramedic programs in rural / regional areas, which would subsequently save patients from a trip to the hospital.
“Currently, if you want to become an intensive care paramedic, or an extended care paramedic, which involves having life saving skills like giving advanced pain relief, suturing a laceration, and putting a breathing tube down someone's throat, then you have to go to Sydney,” Mr Taylor said.
He said that larger regional areas like Queanbeyan have recently received intensive care ambulances, however paramedics who live in Queanbeyan, Goulburn and beyond still can’t gain those opportunities locally.
“The government hasn’t invested in the ambulance service in a long time and we’re falling behind,” Mr Taylor said.
Unlike in February’s industrial action, the APA has received an industrial dispute notification from NSW Ambulance last Friday afternoon to seek a hearing over the action from Monday to Tuesday morning.
APA (NSW) attended the compulsory conferencing at the NSW Industrial Relations Commission on Monday.
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