By Grant McArthur
Herald Sun
Copyright 2007 Nationwide News Pty Limited
All Rights Reserved
AUSTRAILIA — Paramedic have accused the State Government of endangering lives by ignoring falling response times and hospital bypasses.
Their claims come two months after the Government extended response time targets for the Metropolitan Ambulance Service after it failed to meet the benchmarks for the past five years.
City ambulances are now supposed to attend 90 per cent of code 1 emergencies within 15 minutes. Last year the target was 13 minutes.
Paramedics who contacted the Herald Sun yesterday said the move hid the problem, rather than providing enough resources to meet demand.
A paramedic of more than five years, who asked to remain anonymous, said the 15-minute standard was too long for public safety but a lack of staff and ambulances meant the service could never meet the targets.
“You can fudge statistics to say whatever you want,” he said.
“But when you see 10 ambulances parked at Melbourne Hospital, and you know there are another six parked at Monash, there is a knock-on effect.
“For a cardiac arrest they say after eight minutes don’t bother going because if you can revive somebody you will bring out someone who has an incredibly poor outcome.
“Either we are going to do this job properly, or we might as well go home.”
Another paramedic who had served for more than 15 years said the entire health system was at fault, with nursing homes needed to free up hospital beds and hospitals needing more wards to ease the pressure on emergency departments.
He claimed that on Monday afternoon six ambulances were queued at Monash Medical Centre with another five on the way, while three were queued at the Northern Hospital with three on the way.
He said the Sandringham, St Vincent’s, Royal Melbourne, Alfred and John Fawkner Private hospitals were all on ambulance bypass at the same time.
Sources have told the Herald Sun response target changes were made without support from the MAV.
A spokesman for Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the Government had provided an additional $86 million, 467 paramedics and 57 ambulances to the MAV since it came to power, but referred media requests to the ambulance service.
While he said the Bracks Government filled service gaps left by the Kennett government, Ambulance Employees Association state secretary Steve McGhie said it was still years behind. “It has never caught up with the constant increase in workload,” he said.
MAV operations manager Paul Holman said demand had grown by 14 per cent in the past year.
“We are stretched, but it is not just about resources, it is about roads, it is about bed availability and it is about getting patients off the bed at the hospital,” he said.
“The paramedics can’t work any harder and we have one of the best ambulance services in the world.
“You can never have enough resources but it is a matter of balancing the resources you have got, the needs of the community, the budget you have got, and we have put on a lot of extra resources.”
Mr Holman said the MAV was working with hospitals and the union to address concerns about bypasses.