Page 1260 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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Ambulance Service
MRS GRASSBY: My question is to Mr Humphries, the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts. On the weekend, a young person with possible spinal injury had to wait 40 minutes for an ambulance. I am informed that the agreed number of ambulances - four - were on duty, but were otherwise occupied. Will the Minister agree to a full and open inquiry to determine the proper level of ambulance services for the ACT?
MR HUMPHRIES: The answer to the second part of that question, Mr Speaker, is no, I will not agree to such an inquiry, because I am yet to be convinced that any of the so-called facts raised by the Opposition in this place, or by members of other organisations, such as the TWU, are well founded. Some of the things that have been raised by those opposite in this regard, some of the so-called allegations of poor performance on the part of our Ambulance Service, have not been based in fact.
Members may recall that an allegation was made about a person having to travel to Sydney in the back of a station wagon because an air ambulance was not available. In fact, that person had declined the alternatives offered by the Ambulance Service. It had explained to them that air ambulances are available only in limited circumstances, irrespective of what government policy is about the number of ambulance stations in the ACT or the number of ambulance officers in the ACT.
I am frankly sick of the accusations that come from those opposite. I want them to substantiate and prove what they say about the Ambulance Service in the ACT. When they do, then I will sit up and pay attention. In the last few weeks I have spoken with officers of the Ambulance Service who are concerned and distressed at the claims being made by members of the Opposition and members of the Transport Workers Union about the state of our ambulance services. I saw five officers of the Ambulance Service, who came to me and said, "We want you to understand that what is being said is, in many cases, a misrepresentation".
Mr Berry: Five out of 70.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I wonder just how many people there are in the Ambulance Service who see things the same way. I would ask Mr Berry, for example: Does he know how many officers of the Ambulance Service actually complied with bans imposed by the Transport Workers Union some weeks ago, in their ongoing dispute with the Government? The fact is that almost nobody complied with those bans. They had to be lifted, because nobody even noticed that there were bans on in the Ambulance Service. There was such little response on the part of ambulance officers towards those bans.
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