Jeff Kennet goosesteps again!
Baillieu, scion of the wealthy landowner family, has slashed funds to our ambulance service in a horror re-enactment of the first months of Kennet’s regime.
12.5% will be cut from the ambulance budget, no more overtime for paramedics and staff on leave will not be replaced. This savage move is guaranteed to threaten lives over the busy holiday period.
Ambulance Victoria chief CEO, Greg Sasella, calls this an ‘efficiency program” only applied to overhead costs, such as power and medical supplies. How stupid does he think we are? As if turning off the lights and not ordering new medicines will bring about a 12.5% reduction in costs!
It will be efficient to be sure, if you define slower response times and some dead people efficient.
The cuts to the Service started two weeks ago, beginning with regional Victoria. In the Campaspe Shire, a MICA-trained clinical support officer wasn’t replaced under this “efficiency program’. Last Monday, a hobby farmer gored by a bull died after waiting almost 30 minutes for an ambulance because the depot, eight minutes away, was unmanned. The man died at a property near Acheron, 120 kilometres north of Melbourne. At the time, the sole day crew at nearby Alexandra was in Lilydale transporting a non-urgent patient to Maroondah Hospital.
The mounting pressure on regional ambulance services reached flashpoint on Phillip Island last week when a clinical support vehicle and MICA-trained paramedic was relocated from Cowes to Morwell. The vehicle was equipped with $22,000 worth of life saving equipment that was paid for by local fund-raising events.
Over summer the population of Phillip Island swells by about 80,000.
Are we all meant to have a private ambulance on standby, Packer-style?
I hope Baillieu takes a holiday on Phillip Island and suddenly needs an ambulance. Karma, karma, bring on the karma!
