Page 3911 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
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The people of this Territory have assumed, and they have good reason to assume, that they are safely protected by a professional and efficient ambulance service which will be there when they need it. After we had the recent incident of Mr Packer in Sydney being revived by the intensive care equipment that starts the heart, there were some pronouncements from Sydney that that equipment would be introduced to all New South Wales ambulances over a 12- or 18-month period. I think a lot of people in Canberra were very pleased to learn that that type of facility has long been available in the ACT ambulances. People in Canberra feel that the Ambulance Service provides them with a security blanket, should they ever need it.
When we look at planning for this Territory, for example, at the new Territory Plan discussion papers that have recently been distributed, we see again the four ambulance stations with the eight-minute response contour. We assume that that is how the service is provided. But the sad facts that have emerged this afternoon are that those pronouncements on the quality of services provided are not an accurate reflection of the service that is provided; they are merely some sort of wish list.
The assumption that Canberra residents have is that at any one time there will be four ambulances on standby. Certainly, as Mr Duby says, if there were four ambulances operational at any one time, there could, through a series of unfortunate coincidences, be a time when all four ambulances were on duty attending different incidents and so there may be an hour's delay or two hours' delay on the additional incident. Of course, there will always be situations like that. If you had 10 ambulances, a situation could occur when at any given moment an eleventh would be required and there would be delays.
But what we have learnt today is not that delays are being caused because there is not a fifth ambulance. What we have learnt today is that very regularly there are not four ambulances. The Government is unable to tell us how often that is the case. The Government seems unable to tell us from day to day how many services are provided. Mr Berry put it to the house that, on occasions, there are only 1 crews available, which means, in effect, that there is only one ambulance operational. On many occasions, Mr Berry advised the house, there would be only two ambulances available, and he specifically said - - -
Mr Humphries: And you believe it?
MR CONNOLLY: I have no reason not to believe it. The Government has simply failed to address these difficulties, and it is extraordinary that the Minister seems not to know from day to day how many services are being provided. Because of this shortage of services, because of the fact that adequate staff have not been provided, we learn that 25 per cent of shifts in a recent one-month period were worked on overtime.
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