BACCHUS Marsh is often without local ambulance coverage for extended periods, a paramedic has revealed.
With Ballan and Melton offering the closest back-up for emergencies, Stan Burtt said Bacchus Marsh’s single ambulance did more than half its work outside the area.
“It’s not uncommon for the Bacchus Marsh ambulance to be out of town for extended periods of time, over two hours,” he said.
“It does more than 50 per cent of its work out of the local area in places like Melton, Sunshine and Footscray. It can be a two-hour round trip if we have to drive to Ballarat or Sunshine hospital.”
An Ambulance Employees Association report obtained by the Weekly shows Bacchus Marsh residents were without local ambulance support for 14 hours on two occasions since November last year.
The report on unfilled shifts shows the station was unattended during night shifts on November 3 and March 11.
Melton also had no staff on April 20 last year, and only one officer working on February 9.
Mr Burtt welcomed the arrival of a new peak period unit from mid-April that will operate from 11am-11pm. Usually stationed in Melton, it will now start and finish its shift in Bacchus Marsh.
“It should have a positive effect,” Mr Burtt said.
The report said 1112 shifts across the state were not filled in the past year due to shortages of experienced paramedics, leading to patients waiting hours for an ambulance.
A union spokesman said there would be a “huge gap” in response time, even for a code-one emergency, if paramedics at Ballan, Melton and Bacchus Marsh were unavailable. “It could be up to 40 minutes.”
Ambulance Victoria metro-west regional manager Simon Thomson said the service made every effort to ensure paramedics were rostered to each shift.
“Just like anyone else in the community, paramedics are human and they get sick from time to time.
“We see similar peaks and flows to these leave days as many other businesses do.
“Paramedics obviously have choice in what they do when they’re off-duty and if no one volunteers for that overtime shift, it is unable to be filled.
“When we upgrade our Rockbank roster to run 24 hours in April, we’ve made the decision to move the existing peak period unit to our Bacchus Marsh branch and extend its hours of operation to provide even better coverage to the community.”
