The NSW Government is facing further industrial action from health workers today, as paramedics stage a 24-hour ban on staff leaving their allocated station.
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Members of the Australian Paramedics Association (NSW) voted overwhelmingly in favour of the action, which came into effect at midnight, to call for better resourcing and a wage increase beyond the 2.5 per cent annual cap.
The union has asked the government to commit to hiring another 1500 paramedics and to commit to hiring more specialist paramedics.
Illawarra Shoalhaven APA delegate Cheryl Clements, an advanced life support paramedic at the Bay and Basin station, said local paramedics wanted to draw attention to the growing strain on resources.
"It's certainly not done to harm the public, we just want the government to listen to our concerns," she said.
"This is done for the better of our patients and to try and highlight the lack of resources - we need 1500 more paramedics and we also wanted to do this in support of the nurses and midwives."
On Tuesday, NSW nurses and midwives staged their largest walk-out in almost a decade.
She said lack of resourcing - which leads to a longer wait for ambulances as well as "bed block" at Illawarra and Shoalhaven hospitals - had been going on for years, abut that COVID "has just magnified it and made it worse".
"One of the biggest problems in regional areas is resourcing," she said.
"Trying to get specialist paramedics in to the area, and intensive care paramedics into the area is difficult. It starts in Wollongong and gets worse as you go further south."
"There's also a constant fear that you're going to contract COVID, and that fear isn't so much for ourselves, but it's about bring it to more vulnerable patients and to our families.
"Working with all the PPE on is exhausting - we had a student riding with us who had a mask on with one of those metal parts across her nose, and by the end of the shift she had a graze across her face - the masks are hot, you're sweating underneath them, and it's the same with wearing the gowns."
She said paramedics were routinely "leapfrogged" to different stations to fill holes in resourcing, which is why the union had voted to implement the work bans for 24 hours.
APA (NSW) President Chris Kastelan said union members wanted "basic resourcing to ease the burden on Paramedics and improve service to our communities".
"But our pleas are falling on deaf ears," he said.
"This Government will happily pay lip service to thanking frontline workers, but when push comes to shove they aren't prepared to properly support us, or pay us what we're worth."
"We were understaffed before COVID-19, and paramedics have been running on fatigue for years.
"We're not just at crisis point-we're now years into a crisis, with no indication of a light at the end of the tunnel.
NSW Ambulance said any industrial action had the potential to cause disruptions and delays to services.
"Patient safety is always our priority and NSW Ambulance has operational plans to minimise disruption to the community during any such actions," a spokesperson said.
"NSW Ambulance values and acknowledges the work of all paramedics and control centre staff who have worked so hard over the last two years of the COVID-19 paramedic.
"Our staff have been on the frontline and we thank them for all they have done and continue to do."
The 2018-19 NSW Government budget announcement included funding for an additional 700 paramedics and 50 control centre staff across the state to be implemented from 2019 to 2022, the spokesperson said.
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
