TRANSCRIPT:
My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Ambulance Services, and the action I seek is the establishment of a MICA unit within the Mitchell shire local government area. Recently I met with several paramedics from within Mitchell shire in my electorate, and some of the stories they shared were both shocking and heartbreaking. I want to thank Corey, Natasha, Siobhan, Amelia, Anthony, Marcus, Denise and Jayda, who all took time out of their incredibly busy life schedules to meet with me and share their stories, courageously advocating for a stronger and healthier community. They told me that many of our dedicated paramedics were working at least 16-hour shifts, rosters were understaffed, culture issues prevented them from speaking out against difficult conditions and that patient transport had taken over from emergency response as a major part of their role. Ramping issues at our regional hospitals and a failure to reach ambulance time targets have been widely publicised too, with entire fleets of ambulances stuck in hospital car parks for hours as our emergency rooms struggle to handle increased demand.
While all these issues need to be urgently addressed by the Allan Labor government, what stood out to me was the lack of a dedicated, mobile intensive care ambulance unit in the region. MICA paramedics have a higher clinical skill set due to more intensive training and can perform more advanced medical procedures, yet they are not being prioritised for our regional communities. The Mitchell shire, one of the fastest growing regions of our state, does not have a MICA unit to cover a population of more than 50,000 people. A recent incident at a Coles supermarket car park in Seymour required a MICA air unit from Essendon because there were no local options available, leaving the patient at risk for an extended period of time. A clinical manager who was the only one qualified for certain cases was called back for a paediatric resuscitation due to being the only one qualified in the entire Mitchell LGA. This same heroic paramedic single-handedly assisted two cardiac arrests after being pulled from holidays to quite literally save the lives of our community. On their own they are already covering an area from Wallan to Seymour then out to Alex.
The need for local ambulance, health services and patient transport options is critical in our region, our regional communities that have such few public transport options. For some reason this has seemingly been forgotten by Labor as they put together their ad hoc health plans, leaving our community stranded and without transport options that would genuinely save lives. Even the volunteer community options operating in my electorate, like the Royal Flying Doctor Service community transport team, are struggling to acquire funding from this government. All of our paramedics do an incredible job ensuring our loved ones are safe. To all the paramedics and volunteer patient transport drivers, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. On our side of the house we are committed to backing our ambos, because we know what they do to save lives.