Page 4212 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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Mr Macdonald goes on:
In cases where calls are received from any source involving illness, incidents and injury, even if there is no ambulance required the ACTAS directive of 25 June requires that these be written on a Control Room Call Slip and attached to the Communications Officer Report which is produced at the end of each shift.
Mr Macdonald states that at the time of writing "there is no way of knowing whether or not calls were received, what was said or the accuracy of the records of discussion when they are manually recorded". The record of calls is very much left to the officer's discretion and interpretation. As to the exact nature of this incident, Mr Macdonald says:
There is no record of Mr Harris' call being received although clearly it was. There was an internal memo to all staff in the Communications Area which indicates that officers are required to attach a Control Room Call Slip to the Communication Officers Report Form when a call is received and a vehicle is not despatched. Officer ... admitted to Officer McLaren that he was aware of this process but he failed to do so and failed to report the matter until challenged.
Mr Macdonald's report goes on:
The duty of the Communications Officer is to receive and process calls and despatch an Ambulance depending on the priority. Officer ... role was to determine if the case was an emergency and arrange despatch. It was not up to him to decide whether or not to send an Ambulance, if there is any doubt the Duty Superintendent should be consulted. Point 2.3.1. of the procedure manual states that
"A request will be accepted from any person for an ambulance response to an emergency".
Officer ... did not despatch a vehicle nor did he consult with the Duty Superintendent, it appears from our stated policy that the patient should have received the benefit of the doubt. Officer ... has a copy of the manual and is aware of its contents.
I have checked the ACT Ambulance Running Sheet on 16 July; on the south side of Canberra both vehicles 130 and 128 were available from 9.01 pm until the early hours of the next morning. Mr Harris' call at 11.00 pm could have been responded to by either vehicle.
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