STAFFING AND SCHEDULING IN QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA, has gotten so bad that a trainee-paramedic was forced to work 36 hours straight through.
This is just the latest in a string of embarrassments for the Queensland Ambulance Service which is receiving record funding levels while service is plunging.
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Julie Clark says: “I have been so tired I have seen
little monsters running all over the road.”
Julie Clark, 43, was offered a transfer to a quieter station, but she told them that doesn’t solve the problem. Everybody in her station is normally putting in 20 hrs. at a clip already and just shuffling bodies around won’t make it any safer for the patients. “We love our jobs and we do get overtime but this just isn’t safe for me or the patients,” said the paramedic of 18 months. “By the time I came home, I was dizzy from very little sleep and I wasn’t safe to drive especially long distances, or do my job.”
The Courier Mail has the STORY.
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Update, Nov. 8: The Courier Mail has followed up this story today with an editorial reproduced here:
JUST as the State Government faced serious issues in electricity, children in care, hospitals and water, the alarm bells are ringing loudly on the emergency within the ambulance service.
No paramedic should work 20-hour shifts and the case of Julie Clark’s 36-hour stint is not only appalling but unacceptably dangerous.
The system is overstretched and underfunded, despite the levy households pay via electricity bills.
It does not take an inquiry to understand that a shake up is needed from top to bottom, including the condition of ambulance vehicles.
Minister Neil Roberts has been in the job long enough to know he is sitting on a time-bomb.
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