Ambulance insiders accuse Daniel Andrews of misleading Victorians over funding cuts
Ambulance system insiders have warned that hospital ramping will be exacerbated by funding cuts, but the Andrews government maintains only Covid-era roles are being axed.
Victorian ambulance system insiders have accused Daniel Andrews of misleading Victorians over funding cuts, as the government continues to maintain that only Covid-specific surge roles are being impacted.
Senior sources with intimate knowledge of Victoria’s ambulance system have told The Australian of deep concern over alterations to the Hospital Ambulance Liaison Officer program, which will see liaison officers previously based in hospitals shifted to mobile roles.
The alarm comes after The Australian reported on Wednesday that Victoria’s public hospitals were almost $300m in deficit and special departmental briefings were taking place to discuss how to deal with their insolvency at the point at which the Covid-19 pandemic first emerged in 2020.
It follows the Herald Sun revealing on Sunday that government was cutting funding to the HALO program and ambulance patient offload teams program.
In response to questions about the funding cuts on Sunday, the Premier said any funding changes would impact only Covid-era programs. “I’m very pleased to say that Covid is but a fraction of what it was … there were very specific measures put in place for Covid, they were always time-limited, I’m very pleased the time has come where that intense Covid support … doesn’t need to be done in that way because Covid is not with us anywhere near as much as it was,” Mr Andrews said.
“So there’s a whole range of different Covid-specific programs that do not continue because Covid is but a fraction of what it was, and we’re in a very, very different set of circumstances.”
A health system source pointed to a presentation to the state’s health department by then Ambulance Victoria executive director of emergency operations Mick Stephenson in November 2016, highlighting the HALO program in managing ambulance and emergency department demand.
In June 2017, Peninsula Health published an article on its website highlighting the role a daily in-hospital HALO shift had played in improving off-stretcher times from 85 per cent in October 2016, to 98 per cent by February 2017.
“These funding cuts mean Ambulance Victoria has pulled all the HALO positions out of the hospitals and they’re all back on the road,” the insider said.
“If there’s a problem or ramping at a hospital now, they’ll send an on-road manager, which means things are completely rooted by the time they get there.
“This isn’t just taking things back to a pre-Covid era. It’s taking things back to years before Covid, at a time when we’ve got much greater demand than pre-Covid.”
An Andrews government spokesman said the Premier had been referring to the Ambulance Victoria Offload model and Covid-specific surge shifts.
“The functions of both the HALO and APOT will continue but have been rolled into the one program under APOT,” he said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said it was “complete rubbish” for Mr Andrews to claim that only Covid-era roles were being impacted.
“He never apologises for anything when he gets it wrong. He’s misled the Victorian public. He needs to explain why he did,” Ms Crozier said.
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