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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1499 ..

MS HORODNY: Does the granting of a permanent home for this activity include block 515, the block next-door on the corner of Pialligo Avenue? Could you please table the information about that?

MR STEFANIAK: I have no idea what block 515 is, Mr Speaker. I do not have a map in front of me. I would have to get back to Ms Horodny on that one. I will take that on notice. I am unaware of the boundaries of the particular blocks mentioned.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, my question is to Mr Humphries. I refer to an occasion when an ambulance went to the wrong address when called to an emergency in Kaleen. The coroner's inquest on the matter has just concluded, I understand, with a recommendation that protocols be revised to prevent a recurrence. Minister, can you assure the ACT community that you have not waited the 10 months since, but acted immediately at the time to change procedures so that such an event did not and could not happen again?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Wood for that question. It is a very timely question. I can assure him that I have not waited for the coroner's report to act on a number of issues which clearly this incident gave rise to. Immediately after the incident and after I had spoken to officers in Emergency Services and members of the family that was affected by this tragic incident, I instituted a number of changes to procedures. The changes that have been effected include better ascertainment of the address to which an ambulance is sent. It is now procedure that this information, when supplied to the ambulance crew in the station, should be ascertained in some way, I think by reading back to the communications centre the name as understood by the ambulance crew. There is some issue that comes out of the coroner's report as to how that might be better refined, but I think that is a matter that has been addressed already to some extent.

Another is the question of the practice of reclining in stations. It is now the case that reclining in the communications centre has been discontinued. Reclining is the euphemism for sleeping. The issue of reclining in the ambulance stations from which ambulances are dispatched is an issue which will have some industrial relations implications, and not just perhaps for the Ambulance Service.

Mr Berry: I think the coroner was wrong.

MR HUMPHRIES: I could not hear you, Mr Berry. I would be very interested in what you have to say about that.

Ms McRae: He is not allowed to interject. He will be thrown out.

MR SPEAKER: Order! And do not provoke it, Minister.

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes. I wish on this occasion he could.

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