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- 7 June 2007
Emergency Call Response Times
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Page: 1074
Mr THOMAS GEORGE (Lismore) [4.53 p.m.]: In drawing to the attention of the House the issue of 000 calls and response times I do not in any way suggest that our ambulance officers are responsible. They do an excellent job under great pressure and deal with situations on a daily basis that some of us would never wish to come across in our lifetimes. I strongly record my appreciation for the work they do. However, ambulance officers and the general community are being let down by a system that has been centralised and does not adequately serve the residents of regional New South Wales. As recently as last week a constituent phoned my office regarding his daughter who had suffered a fit. As a result of miscommunication between the central dispatch service and the local ambulance service an ambulance arrived in 40 minutes when it should have arrived in 15 or 20 minutes. While my constituent accepts that there was a bad fog in the area, his home is in an easily locatable street. He believes the ambulance would have arrived earlier if the dispatch service had had a greater knowledge of the local area.
Another constituent called an ambulance after a guest in her home had an extreme allergic reaction to something she had eaten. As it appeared that the patient was in severe anaphylactic shock, the constituent's husband commenced driving the patient to hospital with the intention of meeting the ambulance on the single road to their home. This information was communicated clearly to the dispatch service. The patient arrived at the hospital in the private car 12 minutes later without meeting the yet-to-be-dispatched ambulance, which arrived at the constituent's front door 40 minutes later, looking for the patient. In this case my constituent believes that the patient's life would have been in grave danger if they had waited for the ambulance. She is concerned about the amount of time it took to advise the non-local dispatcher of their location prior to an ambulance being dispatched.
Given that lives and future health are at stake, the situation is very serious. It is beyond belief that ambulances must rely on street directories or two-way radio and mobile data terminals to communicate with dispatchers who have little local knowledge. In my electorate alone there have been far too many instances of delays in reaching patients because of the uncertainty of their location. This issue needs urgent consideration. However, the problems are not restricted to the ambulance service. The 000 service needs to be updated. I am embarking on a campaign to have the service updated. I am pleased to note that a presence in the Chamber of the Minister for Emergency Services because I wish to highlight a problem involving emergency services.
I refer to three towns in my electorate. The township of Drake receives police services from Tabulam and hospital and ambulance services from Bonalbo. Drake has a different telephone prefix from Tabulam and Bonalbo. Tabulam and Bonalbo have the 02-66 telephone prefix whereas Drake and Tenterfield have the 02-67 telephone prefix. A call from people who telephone 000 from a 02-67 telephone code will be received at Tenterfield. The local station is 10 minutes away at Tabulam but, because of the boundaries, an ambulance, a police officer, a doctor or an emergency service unit will be sent all the way from Tenterfield. The 000 call centre must have similar problems in other areas across this State because telephone prefixes do not marry with the nearest service centre in responding to calls for emergency assistance.
I have taken up this issue with Telstra because it operates 000. I suspect that this is a national problem, but certainly I know it is a problem in my electorate. I know of other people in the border districts who have had problems because ambulances have been sent from a centre corresponding to the caller's telephone prefix area which is much farther away than a centre in a different telephone prefix area. Each emergency service?such as medical services, state emergency services, fire brigade services and police services?is located in a different town but calls for emergencies assistance are distributed according to telephone prefix codes. This has to be rectified before any further casualties are caused. I appreciate that it will take a long time to correct the problem, but I hope a bipartisan approach will be adopted. The Government should highlight the concerns I have expressed to the 000 service operators. I have already dealt with the Telstra hierarchy in attempting to have the problem resolved. I have no doubt that this is a major problem that needs to be addressed urgently throughout New South Wales.
Mr NATHAN REES (Toongabbie—Minister for Emergency Services, and Minister for Water Utilities) [4.58 p.m.]: I am happy to look into the matters raised by the member for Lismore as they pertain to emergency service access for the towns of Drake, Tabulum, Tenterfield and Bonalbo, in particular the emergency fire services. Where an issue needs to be resolved I am happy to raise it with my ministerial colleagues with responsibility for police and ambulance emergency services and, if necessary, take it up with Telstra.
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