Page 3903 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
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Mr Speaker, I believe the situation is improving. There are still problems to be faced, and we as a government have to make sure we face those problems squarely. It is not possible to prevent all occurrences that might give rise to problems in the Ambulance Service from time to time. Unfortunately, people will report sick; they will fall pregnant; they will contract injuries that give rise to workers compensation claims. There are all sorts of reasons why those things give rise to shortages from time to time.
The improvement in the number of people on the service from 62 to 71 - which incidentally, Mr Berry, is nine people, not seven; we know that you cannot count - does mean, of course, that we are in a better position to deal with those problems. The situation will also improve quite dramatically from 2 November when those crews which are in training will come on to full operational duty. I think that the problems Mr Berry has complained about, to the extent that they exist - and I doubt that they do - will tend to diminish.
I think it is worth bringing a few facts about the matter to the attention of the house. The ACT Ambulance Service operates an agreed minimum crewing level adequate to provide four on-duty ambulances as often as is physically possible. The Ambulance Service's rosters reflect this service. Currently, seven replacement staff are in training, and will be on operational road duties after 2 November. The new recruits will bring the service to full strength with 71 staff. At this time last year there were only 62. Recently there have been occasions on which several ambulance officer positions were unfilled for a number of reasons - sick leave, et cetera. That affected the ambulance rosters and that led, on those occasions, to the closure of an ambulance station. Mr Speaker, this is not a matter which I would choose to deny or cover up, as Mr Berry suggested. I am quite happy and willing to indicate when there are shortages and problems in our system. Unlike Mr Berry, I have never alleged that we would always have four full-time ambulance crews on the road, as Mr Berry alleged in June of last year, when it was quite untrue. What is more, I can assure the Assembly that the service is closely monitoring its staffing levels to ensure that such pressures as do come on to our service do not result in any tragedies.
It is also worth pointing out that some of the things Mr Berry said about the service led to the impression that there is some crisis in the service leading to people being in a situation which is life threatening. My advice is that none of the shortages in our system - and I regret those shortages, of course - have resulted in any person's life being at risk. Mr Berry made reference to someone having to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance crew to arrive, but neglected to mention that it was a non-critical, non-urgent situation. Of course, people in non-urgent
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