Emergency
Our ambulance service is in crisis.
We all rely on ambulances being there for us in an emergency.
But critically ill Victorians are waiting longer than ever and ambos say lives are being put at risk.
Learn more...
Meanwhile, our overstretched paramedics are under enormous pressure because government funding has gone backwards.
Waiting longer than ever
If you have a cardiac arrest, you need an ambo within eight minutes to avoid brain injury or death.
But in Melbourne, you may have to wait a lot longer than that.
In fact, response times for one in every ten emergency cases is 25 minutes or more. And over the last 6 years emergency response times have grown longer and longer.
The State Government’s solution is to simply move the goal posts. Its benchmark has gone from 10 minutes to 15 minutes — and we’re not even meeting that.
We need Premier Brumby to commit to faster ambulance response times, not weaker targets.
MICA is in meltdown
Each year our intensive care MICA paramedics save the lives of thousands of critically ill Melbournians.
But MICA is now in deep crisis. Many suburbs often either have no MICA available within an acceptable distance or their local service only operates on a limited basis. This means that help for critically ill patients may be delayed or impaired.
Over a six month period recently there were almost 130 times when local MICA services were suspended or downgraded.
We simply don’t have enough MICA paramedics to run a reliable round-the-clock MICA service.
There is a shortage of at least 50 of these highly trained MICA paramedics or 20 percent of the MICA workforce. Each month up to six more are leaving from fatigue and burn-out.
Our MICA service is collapsing. We need to restore a full MICA service to all Melbournians.
Frontline fatigue
Paramedic workload has increased up to four times as fast as staff numbers in recent years. Our ambos can’t cope.
Fatigue has reached dangerously high levels. A recent survey of ambos found that 87 percent say it affects their judgement at work. This is a risk to patients, the public and our ambos.
The survey also found:
- 75% of paramedics say they are making errors because of fatigue.
- 73% say fatigue is caused by their workload during their shift.
- 27% have a diagnosed medical problem linked to work-related fatigue.
- 52% say it affects their relationship with their children.
Many ambos say they’ve been so exhausted they’ve fallen asleep driving. Others have made errors with patient treatment and medication.
We urgently need more ambos. This will help us reduce these dangerously high levels of fatigue.
Stand with our ambos! Click now to help our ambos win a better safer ambulance service.
