ambulances & labor firegeezer on 21 Jul 2008 03:42 pm
Aussie Amb. Workers Begin Job Action
AMBULANCE DRIVERS AND PARAMEDICS IN NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA are beginning Tuesday with a job action program.
For months they have been complaining about what they perceive as serious mis-management of the statewide ambulance service. There will be a mass-march on Parliament demanding the Government sack ambulance service CEO Greg Rochford and immediately fill a 300-person shortfall in staff.
They will also enforce work bans on collecting patients’ financial information, allowing everyone who uses an ambulance to ride for free. The cash-strapped Government reaps more than $70 million a year in ambulance fees - almost $1.4 million a week. For every day the drivers refuse to collect fees it will cost the Government about $200,000.
That will no doubt get the attention of the politicians. The Health Services Union is describing a recent report by the government on the state of the ambulance service as misleading and superficial.
Because of the large staff shortage, the medics are overworked and exhausted. When they are at home, they are refusing to answer the telephone in case it is a call back for extra duty. This leads to more shortages and creates a safety problem for the patients. They say they are being pushed to the point of exhaustion across the state. In city areas this could mean an extra two or more hours of overtime at the end of each shift. In country areas this could mean spending every waking hour either working or on call.
The full story is in the Daily Telegraph HERE.
