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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Thursday, 5 August 2004) . . Page.. 3538 ..

surgery services. We have tripled the number of breast care nurses in the ACT who provide valuable support and follow-up after surgery. We will provide $3 million over the next four years to increase the allied health workforce at our public hospitals.

I could go on because there is plenty more to add. This government has been doing significant work and injecting significant amounts of money to make sure that we provide the best health care system that we possibly can. That is what we have been doing and that is what we will continue to do. So the continual snipings and bleatings of Mr Smyth on this issue are merely there for one purpose: to detract from the good work that we are already doing and that we continue to do.

MR PRATT (4.26): Mr Deputy Speaker, what can we say about the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine’s letter? That letter really suppresses all of Mr Wood’s and Ms MacDonald’s pathetic protestations.

I rise today to speak about a much forgotten yet vital area of the ACT public hospital system, the ACT Ambulance Service. The ACT Ambulance Service has done an admirable job over the past few years, particularly in respect of the 2003 bushfire disaster and the hurdles they have had to overcome under the current Stanhope government.

The ACT currently has six fully operating ambulances and crews. Is this enough for the whole of the ACT, especially if we are faced with an emergency? One of the most vital parts of the ACT public hospital system is understaffed and underfunded. This is a major contributor to the crisis that has emerged in the ACT public hospital system since the election of the Stanhope government in 2001.

I have spoken to many ambulance officers in the ACT and they have expressed their frustration to me about the lack of resources they have to work with. How are they supposed to do their job when the Stanhope government, which is letting the ACT public hospital system run into the ground, will not adequately resource the ambulance service?

Again I ask: are six ambulances and crews enough to service the entire ACT? The answer is no. Ambulance officers have told me that they are too stretched to provide the services they believe the territory is entitled to in accordance with national best practice. Funding of vehicles is not really the issue. The issues are training and providing sufficient crews to man the up to eight ambulances and their crew reliefs that ambulance officers believe are needed to cover the community’s needs.

It is my understanding that as at three months ago the ACT was, on paper, fielding 84 ambulance officers/paramedics. But, according to reliable information provided to me, we were scratching to field more than a maximum of 79 officers. This position as at April 2004 reflected deterioration over some time in field crews. It seems to me that, like the broader health system staffing circumstances—and, indeed, like ACT Policing—we have seemingly acceptable paper strengths but the effective number of front-line people is much lower due perhaps to sick leave, overtime exhaustion, other duties and other issues relative to organisational fatigue. I would ask the government if the HR and personnel support services in the ambulance service are also therefore part of the problem relative to the insufficient ambulance capability.

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