Page 2709 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 10 August 2016
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There are clearly concerns as to whether or not our call operators will have the ability and the deep understanding to determine whether or not a rescue requires one truck or many trucks as an appliance, an aerial firefighting capacity, specialised breathing apparatus, a compressed air foam system, or whether all of these may be required. Is it the intention that the call centre manned by such operators will potentially be triaging calls to forward them on to an available fire station? If so, is that not just creating an additional layer of decision-making before an appliance is deployed? I am concerned that these proposed changes are not necessarily focused on getting the best outcomes for the community or having a better response time, but rather are a cost-cutting measure or, perhaps even worse, some sort of power change, shift or grab.
I am told that morale is an ongoing issue amongst our firefighters. I understand that their work has increased by over 20 per cent since 2003. The work is not limited to just structural fires, which appear to have gone down a little in number, but a large number of rescues are attended now by Fire and Rescue as a primary responder to emergency in the ACT.
I was told how recently a fire truck was the first on site for a one-week-old baby who had stopped breathing. The truck happened to be at the local shopping area when the call was made to 000. Because they were on site—and because the call centre operators understood that they were on site—and were able to administer CPR, this one-month-old baby was saved. If we are not going to deploy firefighting personnel when they are the closest then such circumstances could end in tragedy. I think that is the concern of those in Fire and Rescue about this change to the call centre. It is about knowledge of what happens on the ground and an ability to think a little creatively about how we can respond.
It is important to recognise the many roles and varied jobs that Fire and Rescue undertake every single day, whether they are first on site with the jaws of life at a car accident and providing on-site support—for example, their attendance at a recent fatality at the UC hospital site—or helping to free a child who has managed to get their finger or head stuck in a drain or small space. Their commitment to the rescue and service of the people of Canberra really is vital. They are quite often the first point of call for all sorts of problems that need solving, not just fires.
Our ambulance officers are also to be commended for their dedication, not just in saving lives but working to help keep our population well with the community health care that they are now providing. I am constantly amazed at the caring and professional approach of the ambos, having experienced it firsthand last year when I needed to call an ambulance for my baby, who had almost stopped breathing. I am very grateful for the fact that the ambos were not focused just on helping my child but also focused on helping me and my family be calm in the midst of such a crisis.
I know that the Ambulance Service has been through significant growth and change over the past few years, having gone from a workforce of around 60 ambulance officers to now close to 240. I am mindful of the fact that with significant growth can come a range of cultural challenges. The rapid increase of on-road staff over such a short period of time implies that the workforce planning before that period had perhaps been somewhat lacking and had become somewhat reactive. I hope we are not going to find ourselves in that position again.
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