The Perrottet Government must urgently address critical issues with our Ambulance service to ensure people are getting the medical attention they need.
It was already under enormous pressure prior to the pandemic and Covid-19 has increased it.
Our Ambulance service is dangerously understaffed and it is putting our residents at risk. Paramedics are continually speaking out and saying there are a lack of ambulances and paramedics across the network to respond to life-threatening emergencies.
The latest data from the Bureau of Health Information demonstrates that the Ambulance service is under enormous strain within the Sutherland Shire. The Sutherland - Menai - Heathcote Ambulance area covers many suburbs in the Sutherland Shire and when compared to the median Ambulance response times for the rest of NSW, it is taking longer for these Shire residents with emergency and urgent cases to get an Ambulance.
For the Hurstville Ambulance region, which covers many suburbs within the St George area; the most recent data confirms that for the majority of emergency and urgent cases that people are waiting longer for ambulances than during the equivalent time period in 2020. They are also waiting longer on average than other residents in NSW. Paramedics have had more of the highest priority cases to respond to in these areas and they are without adequate staff.
In NSW, there is a target of 90% of patients that should have their care transferred from ambulance to emergency department staff within 30 minutes.
Unfortunately at both Sutherland and St George Hospitals, this is not happening. Only 78% of patients at Sutherland Hospital and only 80% of patients at St George Hospital are being transferred within 30 minutes. The timing of patient care really matters when dealing with serious health issues.
With our health services being overwhelmed without adequate resourcing, patients are losing out and not having their needs met as they should. Residents are being left without vital Intensive care paramedics who undertake highly specialised work, including newborn resuscitation and dealing with cardiac complications. They cannot simply be replaced by paramedics without the specialised training because the Perrottet Government refuses to resource our Ambulance Service adequately.
We must listen to overstretched paramedics who are helping our residents each day and are alerting the Government about the hazardous issues. Our paramedics and the Health Services Union are calling for an urgent injection of staff to our Ambulance service. The Perrottet Government must remedy the chronic shortages and resource our overwhelmed service. NSW needs more paramedics now.
All of our health workers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic and working tirelessly to help our communities. Despite their untiring work, the Government has refused to pay them fair wages. Yet we have just recently learnt that Premier Perrottet is awarding all but one of his Liberal and National MPs a pay rise. Liberal and National politicians don't need a pay rise, our essential workers do.
It is disgraceful that NSW paramedics are the lowest paid in the country. Workers have told the media that they could go and work in Melbourne and make an extra $30,000 a year. We are at risk of losing further paramedics to other states because Premier Perrottet refuses to pay them a fair wage but he will give a pay rise to his Members of Parliament. The Premier's priorities are all wrong.
Taxpayer's will lose $13 billion by the end of this decade because of the Premier's mismanagement of the Transport Asset Holding Entity. Instead of mismanaging taxpayer's dollars, the NSW Government could have spent it on resourcing our health system properly.
The residents of St George and the Shire should be able to depend on our critical health services. It is time the Perrottet Government stepped up and started adequately resourcing our Ambulance service, the safety of our communities depends on it.