NSW: Man died because of ambulance dispute: NSW oppn

AAP General News (Australia)
02-11-2000
NSW: Man died because of ambulance dispute: NSW oppn

SYDNEY, Feb 11 AAP - A man died because the New South Wales Ambulance Service tried
to save money by sending a unit from 45km away rather than pay overtime to nearby on-call
officers, the opposition said today.

Opposition health spokeswoman Jillian Skinner said 75-year-old Richard Munday, of Bowral,
died on Monday night while waiting nearly an hour for an ambulance to arrive from Picton,
some 45km away.

His wife had called triple-O at 11.30pm after he had a heart attack.

But although the nearby Bowral ambulance was on another call at the time, there were
other on-call officers in the town who could have been contacted, Ms Skinner said.

She demanded the state government launch an inquiry to determine whether ambulance
service bans on overtime payments had resulted in the on-call officers not being contacted
in the emergency.

It is believed the service would have saved about $260 by not summoning the on-call officers.

"I am absolutely disgusted that a man has died because the ambulance service couldn't
afford $260 in overtime," Ms Skinner told reporters.

"The Minister for Health (Craig Knowles) must come out of hiding today and announce
an immediate full open independent inquiry into the ambulance service, its management,
operations and financing."

She said she had received warnings from unions that people would die unless more funds
were delivered to the service.

"Now we have had a man die," she said.

"The ambulance officers who were on call on that night have spoken to my colleagues
and I know that they could have been at that man's home within five minutes, applying
resuscitation.

"They were not called."

NSW Health and Research Employees Association spokesman Craig Thompson said the incident
highlighted what ambulance officers had been campaigning about for the past few months.

He said the call-out fee for an on-call team cost the service $268, which covered four
hours' work.

But he said the tragedy also showed the need for extra ambulance officers at stations
around the state.

"We have been saying since this dispute started this was the type of event that would
occur unless our issues about overtime payments and extra ambulance officers were addressed,"

Mr Thompson told AAP.

"If there were enough officers on duty at that Bowral station on the night, this would
not have occurred.

"Secondly, if the service put the community interest ahead of its budget and had the
on-call officers attend (to Mr Munday), we also could have had a different outcome."

The long-running ambulance officers' dispute which began on January 18 is set to continue
on Monday, with about 400 officers attending union talks in Sydney on further action.

Officers have imposed work bans on handling administrative matters and transferring
patients between hospitals and from hospitals to other care facilities.

Similar meetings among ambulance officers would be held around the state on the same
day, Mr Thompson said.

He said there would be staff rostered on duty to handle triple-O emergency calls.

AAP ls/tsm/jd/sub/de

KEYWORD: AMBULANCE (CARRIED EARLIER)

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