ACT Ambulance Service confirms just four stretchered vehicles in operation one night this week

ABC NEWS (Australia)

For several hours this week, there were only four ambulances capable of transporting stretchered patients on Canberra's roads. The union says low staffing, which led to the shortage, is "far too common an occurrence".

Transcript

00:01Ambulance staffing stretched.

00:05What we saw on Wednesday night was an ambulance service on life support.

00:09Rostered paramedics taking sick leave meant between 2 o'clock and 6.30 on Thursday morning

00:14there were just four transport stretcher ambulances staffed across Canberra,

00:18along with three single response units which don't carry patients.

00:23ACT Ambulance Service says ideally there should be at least one stretcher-capable ambulance

00:28for each of Canberra's nine stations.

00:31It's a situation the union says happens far too often.

00:34What we see every day is when members transition to leave or act up in higher duties,

00:39road staff backfill those positions meaning the operational roster continually runs short.

00:4521 graduate and qualified paramedics from interstate are expected to begin working in the ACT in the coming months.

00:52As the city continues to grow and the demand for ambulance services continues to grow,

00:56we'll be talking with government about what future requirements for the service might look like.

01:00While the ACT has long had some of the best ambulance response times in the country,

01:04demand has been increasing year on year with a 7% rise in calls for help in the 12 months to July.

01:10The Chief Officer says it means they'll need to adjust resourcing and strategies

01:13and remind Canberrans to only call triple zero in the event of an emergency.

01:18Every time we send an ambulance and two paramedics to someone with a less urgent health condition,

01:23we stand the chance of keeping them away or extending the response time to someone with a life-threatening emergency.

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