Page 2612 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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I guess the very simple proposition I would put to people is a member of your family is having a heart attack and you want an ambulance to be there as quickly as possible.
This is, of course, true. We do want the services to be able to respond as quickly as possible and with the right help. But it again begs the question about the plan to change the comm centre from an operational hub manned with and including firefighters who innately understand the crisis as it is unfolding to having the call centre manned with operators only who do not have that operational experience.
Mr Barr went on to say:
If you’ve been in a road accident, if something terrible has happened and you need our emergency services—
and in the case of a road accident those who operate the jaws of life in this city are the Fire and Rescue—
are you quibbling over a few dollars?
Again this shows the Chief Minister’s lack of understanding not only of the pressures on families across Canberra but the cost cutting that seems to be going on in the ESA which is, at this point, focused in some ways on the call centre. This government continues to gouge money out of the family budget. As some say, it is using the family home as an ATM to continually withdraw greater and greater volumes of money. It then attempts to cut costs within the comm centre and ESA by removing staff with the most expertise.
I understand that Minister Corbell has been known to remind the firies that he has a long memory. As a result of the United Firefighters Union dissociating from the ALP, it is perceived that the minister is intentionally making life difficult for our hardworking firies. I note he is not even in the chamber when this important debate is going on. Maybe he is working on his valedictory speech for tomorrow. Maybe that is more important to him.
As for the ambos, many ambulance officers have told me of the serious growing pains they have experienced as their workforce has increased from 60 on-road officers some years ago to nearly 240. And I applaud this change. With the growth and change comes a range of challenges. Getting management structures right, developing cohesive teams, ensuring the right mix of skills and experience and capability have, at times, been a challenge. This rapid increase in staff over such a relatively short period implies that perhaps workforce planning before that point had been significantly lacking and, as in so many areas of government, we find the government being reactive once a great problem has occurred.
Cultural change is something many in the Ambulance Service have worked on and have grappled with, and I applaud their efforts. The minister has some questions to answer around this issue and how change is tracking for our hardworking, vital ambulance staff.
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