Thunderstorm asthma: inquiry into crisis response announced
THE response to the asthma storm crisis will be probed by the Inspector-General of Emergency Management, State Parliament has been told.
THE response to the asthma storm crisis will be probed by the Inspector-General of Emergency Management, State Parliament has been told.
Health Minister Jill Hennessy said the Inspector-General will look into the resourcing and co-ordination of emergency services on Monday night, how to better communicate such incidents to the public, and whether it’s possible to better predict such weather events.
The minister said there had been two tragic deaths but that suggestions there had been some incorrect coding of ambulance cases were “comprehensively not correct”.
“Our health system rose to the challenge, it bend but it did not break,” she said.
Ms Hennessy said the state had never seen such demand before, with 1900 calls made to health services, and lessons would be learnt.
“It is incumbent upon us to make sure we learn and ensure that we are ready and better able to respond to these sort of events in the future given we are increasingly seeing unpredictable weather events having really significant and serious health impacts.”
