Exhausted and overworked paramedics have revealed the dramatic measures they’re going to as they respond to emergencies when on-call.
NSW appeared to be the worst hit, with the Australian Paramedics Association saying staff were “doing it really tough” and were “burnt out completely” after a punishing two years responding to fires, floods and Covid-19.
“The service is struggling to fill rosters, and we’ve even seen unprecedented measures like asking metro staff to take an ambulance home and be on-call after their shift.”A NSW Ambulance spokesperson confirmed the agency was experiencing staffing challenges linked to the pandemic, with some workers on furlough and sick leave.
The more than 6000 staff at NSW Ambulance are facing unprecedented demand, peaking on January 1 when 5120 emergency calls were received. “NSW has far fewer paramedics per capita than comparable states, and we need 1500 new staff urgently just to fill that gap,” they said. “We’ve had two years to prepare for the current wave, but our leadership teams seem to have been caught completely off guard.”Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill told NCA NewsWire paramedics would only take their work vehicles home in remote areas where branches had an on-call roster.
“Our Ambulance Victoria and partner agency staff are working extremely hard to manage the increasing demand while prioritising care to the sickest Victorians.Over the past few weeks, paramedics in Victoria have been responding to about 1850 emergency calls every day.Paramedics in NSW and other states have also expressed concern that people are making unnecessary emergency calls.