Doug PollardAmbos are falling asleep at the wheel
The paramedics union have completed a new survey with 350 Victorian paramedic officers participating. The results show that 87 per cent of those who completed the survey feel that fatigue is affecting their judgment when working.
Another alarming discovery coming from this survey is the fact that there have been paramedics who have fallen asleep while at the wheel. Inaccurate drug dosage and even the use of wrong drugs are also due to the officers being fatigued, putting the lives of patients at risk.
The problem, according to Ambulance Employees Australia (AEA) assistant secretary Phil Cavanagh , is that staff are forced to do 10-14 hour shifts ,as well as on-call rosters.
"The cumulative effect of constantly interrupted sleep is that it leads to falling asleep at the wheel,'' he told reporters today.
"We don't want to be saying `I told you so' but a paramedic or patient is going to be killed.
"This has the capability of causing a lot of grief to the government if there's delays and mistakes made with patients, so the government needs to be careful.''
Gordon Bowman who is a veteran paramedic of 34 years tells of his experience one night while on the job;
Mr. Bowman suggested that there should be more numbers, which would mean the work load could be shared.
Victorian Premier John Brumby has said that increasing ambulance resources is being considered for the May budget.
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Another alarming discovery coming from this survey is the fact that there have been paramedics who have fallen asleep while at the wheel. Inaccurate drug dosage and even the use of wrong drugs are also due to the officers being fatigued, putting the lives of patients at risk.
The problem, according to Ambulance Employees Australia (AEA) assistant secretary Phil Cavanagh , is that staff are forced to do 10-14 hour shifts ,as well as on-call rosters.
"The cumulative effect of constantly interrupted sleep is that it leads to falling asleep at the wheel,'' he told reporters today.
"We don't want to be saying `I told you so' but a paramedic or patient is going to be killed.
"This has the capability of causing a lot of grief to the government if there's delays and mistakes made with patients, so the government needs to be careful.''
Gordon Bowman who is a veteran paramedic of 34 years tells of his experience one night while on the job;
"We had to drive 2-3 hours to Melbourne with a patient, then the same distance back when the adrenaline levels drop off,'' he said.
"My mate fell asleep and I had to wake him up ... I remember waking up and he had hit the curb of a bridge.''
"My mate fell asleep and I had to wake him up ... I remember waking up and he had hit the curb of a bridge.''
Mr. Bowman suggested that there should be more numbers, which would mean the work load could be shared.
Victorian Premier John Brumby has said that increasing ambulance resources is being considered for the May budget.
"If we've got the capacity to do more in this area then that's obviously something I'd like to do,'' he said.
"We've provided a huge increase in resources for ambulance ... but obviously there are still workload issues and I'm very conscious of that.''
"We've provided a huge increase in resources for ambulance ... but obviously there are still workload issues and I'm very conscious of that.''
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