Ambulance coronavirus infections ‘justify’ pandemic leave

Unions press to widen access to paid pandemic leave as health worker infections spread beyond aged care.

Sixteen ambulance employees in Victoria have contracted COVID-19, prompting unions to press the Fair Work Commission to widen employee access to paid pandemic leave to help prevent coronavirus outbreaks beyond the aged-care sector.

Unions said COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in 13 disability group homes run by private providers, including one home where three residents and seven staff had been infected.

Workers providing home care to aged-care clients should also receive the leave, they said, because these clients were “equally as vulnerable to fatality as those cared for in residential homes”, citing 54 cases and five deaths recently.

The Victorian Ambulance Union said non-emergency pat­ient transport workers were going to aged-care ­facilities more frequently than before the pandemic, and being called upon to transfer infected residents to­ hospitals. It said the assessment and transport of an infected aged-care resident involved close contact between resident and NEPT employee.

The Australian Services Union said there was an “elevated risk” of workers contracting COVID-19 in the disability sector, and the FWC needed “to act now to prevent an outbreak in the sector like that in aged care”.

It submitted these workers generally faced insecure work and low pay and were employed in group homes and residential facilities where COVID-19 could spread rapidly. It relied on evidence from the UK Office of National Statistics that two-thirds of people who died of COVID-19 between March and May 2020 had a disability.

The Australian Industry Group said there was no evidence of an “elevated risk” manifesting among the workers.

The FWC scheduled a further hearing for Wednesday.