Page 234 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 1991
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permanent basis, because he would find that any service, no matter how good, would experience problems of that kind, unless it were funded at a level which is quite unrealistic for the ACT.
To give an example of what I am saying, today and for the next few days there will be a one-officer deficiency in the ambulance crews that are actually sitting at stations. But the service has, at the same time, nine officers attending a training course. The director of the service has advised me that the service is quite confident with this arrangement, and that it can redeploy those available resources as needed.
Longer term interventions in place include: redeployment of officers who are on long-term absences to other less critical areas of the health service, or termination; internal reorganisation which has been agreed with the union - that is the Transport Workers Union - in the SEP negotiations will result in less senior off-road management positions; the next staff intake will be in July of this year to cover vacancies; and new senior operational managers have been selected and will be in place in the next few weeks. Again, Mr Berry's timing in this matter is not coincidental. The director of the service, again, is confident, and I too am confident, that the deployment of staff will be significantly enhanced as a consequence of these measures.
Members will recall from my statements in the previous debate on this matter that I had convened a number of meetings with representatives of the Transport Workers Union and the Ambulance Service in late last year, addressing the union's perception that additional ambulance staff resources were needed. Those discussions produced an ambulance staffing paper, which was jointly prepared and agreed on by both the union and the ACT Board of Health. This paper presented the following recommendations for consideration by the Government:
(i) That recruitment for additional fully qualified "Ambulance Officers" commence forthwith, with all such new positions filled, being dedicated to the resourcing of rostering of the accumulated leave within the Ambulance Service, and ensure minimum crew availability at all times.
(ii) That without prejudice to the actual number finally needed -
I think Mr Berry and others should listen to this -
(depending on availability of appropriate applicants and rostering of applications for leave received from staff), it is agreed that the leave accumulation and staff shortages (as outlined) will need a staff resource of five Officers for a period of five years.
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