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Rural Ambulance Crisis Deepens As Pike Contradicts Bracks

Health Minister Bronwyn Pike’s confirmation today that Rural Ambulance Victoria will not get the promised Computer Automated Dispatch (CAD) system before November’s State Election is worrying news for country communities.

By Helen Shardy - 23rd March 2006 - Back to News

Bronwyn Pike was forced to ‘clarify’ the timeline after Steve Bracks told reporters the system would be in place before the election.

Despite the admission, Bronwyn Pike has still not given country Victorians a timeline for when they can expect their ambulance dispatch system to be upgraded from pen and paper.

The current antiquated dispatch system is no doubt having a detrimental effect on the daily operations of RAV. The system is not efficient and therefore ambulances are not as efficient as they could be in attending emergencies.

This morning the Warrnambool Standard reports that RAV waited 19 minutes before sending an ambulance to a life-threatening car accident on Friday night.

This is not good enough. Why is Steve Bracks putting up with this inaction?

RAV is the only ambulance service in Australia that does not have a computer aided dispatch system while only 12 per cent of heart attack victims are revived in country Victoria compared with 37 per cent in Melbourne.

Despite these figures Steve Bracks and Bronwyn Pike have not even got to square one in the process of securing the new system. They have not even found a tenderer for the project yet.

The Bracks Government can’t manage our health system and its failure to modernise RAV’s dispatch system is a prime example of Labor’s failure to plan for the future. Now country Victorians are stuck with a system that belongs in the past.

The General Secretary of the Ambulance Employees of Australia, Steve McGhie, today revealed that ambulance employees have been warning "for years" that the country service is not adequate.

Mr McGhie pointed not just to the dispatch system, but also to staffing levels, depletion of services, inappropriate use of ambulances for non-urgent transportation and non-ambulance qualified staff working in dispatching centres. There have also been concerns over a bullying culture in RAV.

Mr McGhie gave several examples where country towns experiencing a massive influx of visitors for cultural events were left with little or no ambulance coverage.

Steve Bracks and Bronwyn Pike would not allow this crisis to go on in the city. They are treating country Victorians as second class citizens and it must stop immediately.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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