Ministerial intervention on the cards for Hunter Rescue Helicopter

BY MATT JOHNSTON

The ongoing stoush between the Health Services Union and John Hunter Hospital over the operation of the Westpac rescue helicopter has led to calls for the New South Wales Health Minister to step in.

Union secretary Gerard Hayes thinks the best way to resolve the ongoing issue is for the Minister Hazzard to intervene on the contentious issue.

The HSU claims a unique arrangement with John Hunter Hospital and the rescue service is putting lives at risk, as the hospital insists on fitting out the chopper with its nurses rather than using paramedics that are already on hand.

Gerard Hayes says the turn-around to refit the helicopter and its crews under this model can take up to an hour and a half, which in emergency situations is simply too long.

"We're advocating that the Newcastle model would fall into line with all other models in the state where there's one crew that will address both issues [of primary rescue and secondary retrieval]."

The HSU claims enough reviews have been conducted to safely implement the single crew model, which is in use in every other jurisdiction in NSW.

They hope Minister Hazzard will be able to bring "resolution" to the "absurd" staffing situation.

Low Resources Putting Hunter Paramedics in Danger

BY LAUREN KEMPE

The Health Services Union is calling on the state government to provide more protection for Hunter paramedics after another attack from a patient.

The latest incident occurred on Sunday morning, where a 19-year-old man allegedly bit a local paramedic on the arm, drawing blood.

New South Wales Police and two paramedics were called to a Muswellbrook home proceeding a concern for welfare report.

Health Services Union Secretary Gerard Hayes, says the Premier needs to seriously consider paramedic safety as a priority.

'It;s very simple. The Premier needs to stop quoting about a $5.4billion surplus, and start employing paramedics who can actually change peoples' lives, and resource the ambulance service to a level where paramedic safety can be guaranteed.'

The incident follows a similar attack at Belmont in April this year, where a man assaulted one paramedic and threatened another who were both assisting a pregnant woman.

Mr Hayes says these kinds of incidents are very common, and paramedics deserve significantly more protection.

'The ambulance service is grossly under-resourced, we say a figure of 800 - in fact, it's more like 1,000 extra paramedics that are required. It's really an important issue that needs to be consistently raised about paramedic safety.

'I think it is really important for the community to very clearly tell the government that paramedics need to be protected while they're protecting others.'

The 19-year-old male patient is expected to be charged with assault.

Image Credit: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/vic-paramedics-highest-trained-lowest-paid

HSU hitting back at new Maitland Hospital plans

BY JARROD MELMETH and JESSICA ROUSE

The Health Services Union is describing the announcement a not-for-profit operator will run the new Maitland Hospital as a "camouflaged attempt to slash staff conditions and job security".

Yesterday the State Government made the announcement the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) would be scrapped and replaced with a not-for-profit operator which the NSW Health Minister says will maximise the taxpayer's dollar.

The HSU is now ramping up its campaign to defend and promote staff conditions at Maitland Hospital and continue to push for a public hospital.

HSU NSW Secretary Gerard Hayes says while it may be better than a multinational corporation running the hospital, it is not good enough.

"We don't know too much of the details at this point in time but I don't see the need to go down the path of having a not-for-profit provider when the government can actually manage these issues themselves and actually have done basically in every other hospital in NSW."

The Health Services Union can't understand why out of five hospitals which were up for a PPP, three have been taken off the table and one's gone into a different partnership, and the new Maitland hospital has been chosen to go down the not-for-profit pathway.

"Around 47 per cent of households in the Maitland catchment don't have private health insurance, that means that people of Maitland are under some pressure. I can't understand why a government would single this hospital out as it has with the Northern beaches hospital to run a different model to the rest of the state," said Gerard Hayes.

Image abc.net.au

Mixed results for ambulance response times in the Hunter

BY SARAH BARONOWSKI

New statistics on ambulance response times across NSW are showing some mixed results for the Hunter.

While ambulances are responding to emergency cases within 30 minutes 96 percent of the time in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie, response times are only at 92 percent for other areas in the region.

However, NSW Secretary of the Health Services Union, Gerard Hayes says these statistics aren't a fair representation of what's actually going on.

"There's only certain areas that are being measured. I think that what is really here is the fact that the state is under-resourced and paramedics and response times will continue to live at the level of the second worst in the country," he said.

"The service does the best it can with what it has and what it has is not enough. We've got to get real in this and make sure we can save lives by putting the right amount of professionals in place to be able to service the community."

Figures also show one in four critically ill or injured patients are waiting more than 10 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

Gerard Hayes says the implications for those who have to wait longer than this, can be catastrophic.

"That ten minutes can mean whether [people] will survive or not. If you have chest pains or anything along those lines, you should be contacting the ambulance as soon as possible and the ambulance should be attending as soon as possible, not waiting," he said.

"Every second counts."

NSW Secretary of HSU, Gerard Hayes [Image: ABC]

Rally to Save Maitland Hospital

BY SARAH BARONOWSKI

Hundreds of health workers, unionists and community members are expected to join together at Maitland Park this Sunday to protest the privatisation of Maitland Hospital.

The "Keep Our Hospitals Public" rally will be held from 12 noon to 2pm with the hopes of bringing the community together on this issue.

NSW Health Services Union Secretary, Gerard Hayes. [Image:Image: http://www.2gb.com/article/gerard-hayes-%E2%80%93
-secretary-health-services-union]

NSW Health Services Union Secretary, Gerard Hayes says it is important for people to band together. 

"No individual can win this, this is a community issue," he said. "They own that hospital. It's not for the government to give away but the only way we can fight this is by coming together as a community.

"We need to ensure that services at Maitland hospital are maintained and extended, not moved to John Hunter hospital and that profits don't come before services that the community need."

According to Mr. Hayes, this decision has not been made in the interest of the wider community.

"This is an attack on regional NSW," he said. "The private sector is about making money.

"We cannot get to a point that if you're wealthy, you can access services and if you don't then you either have to go on a waiting list or maybe go to Newcastle."

He says a hospital is not for the government to profit from and asks for a change in direction.

"The fact of the matter is what goes on in the hospital is the responsibility of Health," he said.

"It is not the responsibility or to be abdicated to the private sector."

The rally will continue to be advertised over the next couple of days and Gerard Hayes encourages people to come along.