Transcript of my opening speech to the Assembly, in tabling the Supporting Our Paramedics Motion.
2022 12 01 Motion – Supporting Paramedics Opening Speech
Madam Speaker I rise to bring the motion tabled in my name.
Problems facing the Ambulance services.
This motion is about the significant problems facing our ACT paramedics and our ACT community. Recently I received an email detailing the long wait for an ambulance for an elderly patient. The elderly person, suffering significant health issues, experienced a stroke or cardiac event whilst out shopping. An ambulance was called immediately. It took an hour and 5 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
This is just one of many incidents that I have become aware of since taking over this shadow portfolio. The problem is of course not with the Ambulance Service, as we know only too well they do an amazing job, but rather with the number of paramedics that are employed to cover an ever increasing workload.
In June of this year the Canberra community became aware that ACT firefighters were being rostered to respond to ambulance emergencies on Saturday evenings due to staff shortages. What is concerning about this practice is that it is part of a business continuity plan. Why is it that non-paramedics are being called out to deal with paramedic emergencies, when they are already themselves often stretched to the limit.
In August there was the very sad incident where a fire crew were also asked to respond to a health emergency in support of an ambulance crew, and the young person died. Again, the problem is not with the Fire Service. I know they do an amazing job. And as the Greg McConville of the United Firefighters Union said, firefighters were trained in some medical emergency response procedures, including advanced first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and advanced resuscitation.
So, I have no doubt that fire crew treat patients with care and consideration, where they can! But. Again. The issue is the lack of available ambulance emergency crews available.
These are but a few of the issues that have led to me tabling this motion today.
Ambo’s not ok
However, that is of course not all. Last week several ambulances were spotted with signs on the back of their vehicles, such as “We are not ok”, “we are not triple ok” and “Canberra deserves better”. I sympathise with their views and have to agree with that last sentiment.
This led to the astonishing action last Friday by the members of the Ambulance services taking a vote of no confidence in the leaders of the ESA. What emerged were harrowing stories of long shifts. Night shifts of 14 hours or more. Working 28 hours in every 38, something that most people would complete in a week of work, not two days.
They spoke about being exhausted and I am not surprised. But more scarily, they spoke of falling asleep at the wheel on the way home from such long shifts.
What was disturbing for me though, was hearing from people like Darren Neville on ABC TV that they have just not been able to get through to this government, they were not being listened to. Yet, Mr Gentleman, only spoke last week on how much they are doing. Though again, here we are seeing that whatever that “much” is, and we don’t actually know, it isn’t getting more staff on the ground, and it isn’t reaching the people who need it most, the paramedic officers on the ground, our frontline crew.
And that is the crux of this motion. The people of Canberra want to know the details, we want to know what is this government actually doing to provide adequate services to the ACT, to manage the health and wellbeing of our community. The Ambulance officers deserve to know what the government are actually doing, not just what they say they are doing. They want to know that their concerns are being ‘treated seriously’.
New paramedics?
Now I know the government is going to come back with their usual trite and very tired line that the Canberra Liberals have voted no to the budget, whilst they are delivering on services. And In the past we’ve all heard of the big dollars being promised to improve matters.
But Paramedics tell us differently, annual reports tell us differently, and all Canberrans know differently, which is why the Canberra Liberals voted no to this and previous budgets. Not because we don’t want services, but because we do! We want to see money spent on health, housing and essential services. Not on vanity projects, large unnecessary infrastructure items, and expensive consultants that take away money from essential services and that don’t improve matters in the ACT for our community.
Paramedics tell us that they have been waiting for seven years to see an improvement in their employment, rostering and increased staffing numbers. Seven years! That is 6 years too many. So, I asked my staff to go back through the annual reports and see how many additional staff have been employed in the last 6 years. Note, this is not replacements, but additional.
After all, the minister said, here in the Assembly, on Thursday, 4 August 2022, that they had employed 53 new paramedics between last term and to date. To be fair, he did not say additional. But after all, if you are making the point that you are listening to the needs of the Paramedic community, and they are asking for EXTRA paramedics to assist with rostering issues, then the expectation is that they will get EXTRA paramedics.
However, that is not what we’ve found as we went digging. Of course, I only have the government’s own annual reports to go on. However, the numbers are quite revealing. Let me read them out:
- From 2016-17 to 2017-18 the service actually lost 18 Ambulance officers.
- From 2017-18 to 2018-19 the service again lost another Ambulance officer.
- No increases yet.
- From 2018-19 to 2019-20 the service finally gained 30 Ambulance officers. But remember there were 19 lost the previous two years, so that’s really only an increase of 11.
- From 2019-20 to 2020-21 the service gained another 18 Ambulance officers.
- And then in the last financial year, the service gained another 5.
So, using the Minister’s own time period, over that time – according to the annual reports, there have been exactly 34 additional new ambulance officers employed.
And yet, that is not enough. As I mentioned in my response to this years budget, it was disappointing to again see no real additional promise of front line crew. Yes, there is new staff promised, but that is divided between the much needed PACER crews, and some unspecified number of intensive care paramedics, as well as more call centre staff. There is again, a complete lack of detail. And detail is what we all want. The paramedics working long shifts and the Canberra community waiting long hours for an ambulance to attend them.
Increasing incidents
Someone listening to this may well wonder why we need more front line crew – maybe you weren’t already aware of the matters I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. I was staggered by a statistic posted on the Ambo’s ACT Facebook page, which showed a comparison between paramedics in Australia and New Zealand. Did you know that, on average, ambulance officers in Australia attended 6 patients every minute compared to their counterparts in New Zealand who only see 1?
Again, a quick review of the Annual Reports confirms that the level of work that paramedics do is overwhelming and increasing. Every year there has been an increase in the number of incidents, on average over the last 6 years five thousand more medical incidents were reported. The last year has been the most significant, with an 11 percent increase in incidents reported.
What is also concerning about those numbers is that the number of incidents responded to has dropped. Whilst previously the number of incidents and responses ran fairly evenly, just this last year there were 75,698 medical incidents reported, but only 63,614 responded to. It begs the question, what happened to the other 12,084 callers. Were they ignored? Were they told to make their own way to the hospital? I would love to hear the Minister explain those numbers. And why the health of Canberrans are being put at risk in this way.
PTSD
But it’s not just the health of Canberrans that are being put at risk. It is also the health of the Ambulance officers themselves. A review in NSW found that those working in health care were more than twice as likely to claim for psychological injury than other workers, with Paramedics most likely to claim for PTSD.
Research by beyond blue and others showed that there had been a 11 percent increase in PTSD reported by ambulance officers. Those interviewed for the studies reported a lack of adequate support, compensation to meet financial burdens, or proper redeployment, with some loosing as much as $30 thousand out of their pay package.
PTSD, Diabetes, inhibited mental performance, increase risk of injury and accidents, weight gain, depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue, are all consequences that are being faced by our paramedics who are working long hours without adequate breaks, holidays and time off. But most of the research on PTSD and other health problems has been done elsewhere, with no data available in the ACT.
Conclusion
It’s an ongoing roundabout of not enough, not adequate, and everywhere a lack of detail. So, in this motion, I am calling on the Minister to detail to the Assembly all actions he is taking to address the issues raised by the Ambulance officers, staffing, rosters, workload through increased incidents, and health concerns. And to report back in the first sitting day of 2023.
END