SA ambos reject Lib claims of ‘dump and run’ as offensive
The ambulance union has hotly rejected Liberals claims moves to speed up offloading patients will result in a “dump and run” situation, calling it offensive.
SA News
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The ambulance union has welcomed an updated handover policy which it says has an “emphasis on finding a safe place for offload of ambulance patients to free up ambulances” but savaged the opposition’s claim it will result in a “dump and run” attitude by paramedics.
SA Health’s updated Ambulance Transport and Handover policy puts the onus firmly on hospitals to take responsibility for ambulance patients once they are triaged on arrival with the expectation they will “moved from the ambulance to an appropriate place in the hospital as soon as possible.”
This has raised concern among clinicians it will see patients queued in corridors in busy times to free up ambulances.
Ambulance Employees Association state secretary Paul Ekkelboom welcomed the clarification that hospitals have responsibility for patients once they arrive at ED, and its emphasis on finding a safe place to offload ambulance patients so ambulances can respond to the community.
He noted the AEA rejects the “offensive suggestion” made by the opposition health spokeswoman Ashton Hurn that paramedics will “dump” patients at hospitals and “run, ”stressing that ambulances officers will always act in the best interests of their patients and will never put patients at risk of harm.
“The emphasis on offloading ambulance patients into hospital EDs, where it’s clinically appropriate to do so, is timely recognition of the dangers of external ramping to the South Australian community,” he said.
“The distinction between a patient waiting inside the hospital or outside the hospital might seem slight but it is important: if patients can safely wait inside hospitals rather than on the ramp, ambulances are freed up to respond to the community.
“The patient most at risk is not the patient in the hospital ward or in the hospital ED. It’s not even the patient in the hospital corridor or the patient ramped in the back of an ambulance. “It’s the patient out in the community who has called triple-0, who hasn’t been assessed or accessed care, and who an ambulance can’t get to – because it’s stuck on the ramp.”
SA Health chief executive Dr Robyn Lawrence said the 2024 Ambulance Ramping Report by Professor Keith McNeil and Dr Bill Griggs, identified ambiguity regarding who has legal responsibility for patients.
She said as a result, SA Health sought to clarify the policy by clearly detailing when legal responsibility transfers from the SA Ambulance Service to the hospital.
“Under this policy, transfer of legal responsibility occurs at triage,” she said. “This is a separate issue to transfer of care, which occurs when the patient is clinically handed over and physically transferred from paramedic to the receiving clinician to continue to receive clinical care. This will continue to occur as normal, and no change to this existing practice has been proposed.”
A government spokesperson said: “There is no change to how or where patients are treated and it is false to suggest otherwise. It’s false for Ashton Hurn to claim otherwise.
“SA Health existing policy requires patients to be treated in a hospital as soon as possible and that remains the case.
“Ashton Hurn must explain why she does not support the findings of the expert review.”
Originally published as SA ambos reject Lib claims of ‘dump and run’ as offensive
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