Ambulance drivers' safety campaign

By Alex Bainbridge NEWCASTLE — After a decade of campaigning to end single officer ambulance crews, district ambulance officers launched an industrial campaign. On November 22 work bans were put in place after management closed the one-person stations at Beresfield and Cardiff and sent officers to other one-person stations in the area. The ambulance union has consistently argued for more staff, and against the closure of stations as the solution to the problems of the single officer stations. Ambulance officers in one-person crews have banned lifting stretcher patients by themselves until the government allows two person crews on all Hunter ambulances. Despite management's claim that staffing levels are adequate, ambulance officers have reported an increasing number of cases when back-up has not been available. Ambulance officers say that increasingly the service is relying on volunteers, recruited at emergency scenes, to drive vehicles and help administer care. Examples cited by the Health and Research Employees Union (HREU) where one-person crews have been insufficient to guarantee public and officer safety include: parents being forced to drive ambulances while an officer attends critically sick children in the vehicle's rear; officers forced to do cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) by themselves; an officer having a gun pointed at his head while on duty; and another being forced to lock himself in an ambulance at Stockton after being attacked by a man with a knife.