PEOPLE suffering heart attacks could be ignored by nearby Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance units under new rules, according to a northern suburbs MICA paramedic.
He claimed measures to cut ambulance officers’ overtime could cost someone’s life.
Ambulance Victoria has ordered that when a specialist MICA unit is at the end of its 12 or 14-hour shift, it would not be sent to heart attack victims even if it was the closest unit, said the officer, who did not want to be named.
He claimed that instead of a specialist ambulance, the victim would get an ordinary ambulance if there were no MICA units still on call.
Ambulance Employees Australia Victorian secretary Steve McGhie said the rule also applied to ordinary ambulances. “If you’ve got an ambulance close to a [heart attack] victim but it’s at the end of a shift, they will not be sent and that can make a life-and-death difference,” he said.
The recent decision to apply the “knock off” rule to 12-hour shifts — the rule had been in place for 14-hour shifts for some time — revealed holes in the ambulance service, Mr McGhie said.
He said there were not enough officers to deal with emergencies which had lead to unreasonable overtime demands and paramedic fatigue.
Simon Thomson, Ambulance Victoria’s regional manager of metro-west, said the measures aimed to help paramedics working peak shifts to finish on time and reduce fatigue, and did not put the community at risk.
“We have added 10 more shifts across Melbourne to support the changes,” Mr Thomson said.
