00:00For the past 11 years, Mike Breen has been responding to medical emergencies in Tasmania's
00:07north.
00:08He's not a paramedic, but a volunteer ambulance officer at the Beaconsfield station.
00:13It's very unpredictable, you never know what you're going to get.
00:16We get a pager message giving us basic information about the job and then sometimes you rock
00:24up and it'll be totally different to what you expect.
00:27Other ambulance officers support paid paramedics by driving vehicles and helping to care for
00:33patients.
00:34I'll be taking the basic observations of the patient using various types of equipment depending
00:40on what's required and helping the paramedic from that perspective so they can concentrate
00:46on gathering all the relevant medical past history.
00:51While Beaconsfield has enough ambulance volunteers, many other towns don't.
00:55According to Tasmania's health department, about 60% of volunteer shifts are not filled.
01:01The Health and Community Services Union says this sometimes leaves paramedics to attend
01:06emergencies on their own.
01:08It means for instance that the paramedic cannot be in the back of the vehicle and when they're
01:14transporting the patient they can't monitor the patient.
01:17So it's actually a dangerous situation and shouldn't occur.
01:20The union says relying on volunteers is risky and the government should focus on recruiting
01:25paid paramedics.
01:26If we have competitive salaries we're going to be able to recruit and retain staff and the
01:32government have an opportunity to do that now because bargaining is just beginning and
01:36we need to see pay parity and matching conditions with the mainland.
01:39The Health Department says the shortage of volunteer ambulance officers is due to a nationwide decline
01:45in volunteering.
01:47It says it's actively recruiting more volunteers and 78 new paid paramedics.
01:51International Audience Member
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