Paramedics should be exempt from WWCC fees: union

Health Services Union secretary Gerard Hayes said its members in the region, and across the state, had overwhelmingly voted to not pay the $80 fee, due every five years.

However Mr Hayes claimed the NSW Government had said it would remove paramedics from duty from April 2018 if their fees went unpaid.

‘’This government is touting a $4.5 billion surplus yet we’re seeing these sorts of fees they traditionally paid being transferred on to employees,’’ he said.

‘’We have no problem with the checks – they’re very good and very appropriate and we’re happy to comply – but paramedics see this as another cash grab.

‘’We will be campaigning very heavily to ensure paramedics who look after the community don’t have to pay the price.

‘’At this point in excess of 800 of our members – from paramedics to superintendents – have indicated they will boycott the fee as a point of principle.’’

Mr Hayes said paramedics in regional areas like the Illawarra would be particularly hard hit by additional fees.

‘’The Illawarra is under the pump consistently – whether it’s the government attempting to outsource hospital linen services, trying to privatise Shellharbour Hospital or refusing to boost paramedic numbers,’’ he said.

‘’This is just another attack on paramedics and health workers in the region – a region that needs investment in it rather than more money taken out of it.’’

Mr Hayes said police were exempt from the fee, so paramedics and other health workers also should be. ‘’Why single out one group for preferential treatment,’’ he said.

A NSW Ambulance spokesman said the working-with-children check had been phased in since 2013 for all NSW Government agencies. The fee was tax deductible for employees, and free for volunteers. 

‘’NSW Ambulance is one of the last agencies to be subject to the check which will see paramedics brought into line with other health workers,’’ he said.

The spokesman said in 2015 Unions NSW had lodged an application for an industrial award to provide for reimbursement of the fee to the state’s public sector employees.

The application was dismissed by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.