HSU Union Comments Don't Fly with Nurses and Midwives Association

BY JESSICA ROUSE

The Nurses' and Midwives' Association is hitting back at claims the 30-year relationship between the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service and the Hunter Retrieval Service at the John Hunter Hospital is putting lives at risk.

The Health Services Union (HSU) believes it takes too long to pick up the medical team from the John Hunter Hospital and then fly to the mission.

Fairfax reported in late December that the Belmont-based Westpac Rescue Helicopter couldn't fly several emergencies because of the arrangement which delayed response times.

The Nurses' and Midwives' Association (NMA) has hit back at these claims calling them a gross exaggeration. The HSU also labelled the patients transferred between hospitals as "minor transfers" which the NMA says is also untrue.

"These are some of the sickest and most unstable patients in the hospital system," said John Hunter Hospital NMA Branch Secretary Clare Bolton.

NSW is unique in that it doesn't follow other states who allow specialised paramedics to perform patient transfers as secondary missions. In NSW only critical care nurses are allowed to perform patient transfers for the Hunter rescue helicopter.

"The only time the intensive care retrieval service is dispatched is when they actually need ongoing complex monitoring and treatment during their transfer," Clare Bolton said.

Patients being transferred often need specialist medical care for the journey and are frequently transferred to the John Hunter because they've been referred to their specialist medical services.

Clare Bolton said, "a paramedic it's not a part of their skillset, it would take an awful lot of training, months of training, for them to actually understand what the needs of the patient are and what those machines and drugs are doing to be able to manage them effectively,"

"So if it's a paramedic doctor team transferring the patient with those therapies going on, the doctor can do all of the interpreting of the data and make the decisions what to do and tell the paramedic exactly what he has to adjust and how."

There's a 10-year contract in operation which includes picking up a doctor/nurse team from the John Hunter at a $600 cost per patient.

"And if there's a clash, if the helicopter is on the pad at Belmont and the secondary team request it, but there is already a primary pending, the primary will always win out. The secondary team will always have to make other arrangements or delay their job if that's feasible for the patient," said Clare Bolton.

"The retrieval nurse will have a conference with the pilot about what the case is, where it is and the time is determined for when the team, the helicopter and the team, will meet on the pad at John Hunter. Those teams can be on the team within 20 minutes of finishing that phone call."

The urgency of the transfer determines the time taken for the mission, and primary missions are always given priority.

Clare Bolton believes the claims of extra cost and time from the HSU are "absurd". The patients are often from hospitals north meaning the John Hunter is on the way.

"A slight delay, slightly more cost to make sure you're getting the best available team to look after that patient while they're in a high-risk environment outside the supports of the hospital, really is very very minimal. The skills that you're taking to the patient really are the most significant thing, really vital to get the right people there at the right time."

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

Calls for a summit to discuss Paramedic safety

BY JAMES WARD

State Member for Wallsend, Ms Sonia Hornery, has urged the Government to hold a summit to discuss the safety or lack of for Paramedics across the state.

Ms Hornery has spoken a number of times in Parliament about the issue dating back to 2013 with the tabling of the Notices of Motions but has again pleaded to the Government after a series of attacks on Paramedics in recent months.

Along with Ms Hornery, The Health Services Union has called for the summit after assaults on Paramedics have risen in the last year.

"There have been increasing levels of injuries to Paramedics so I'm asking the Government again to make sure they pay attention to my concerns about the lack of safety for paramedics and to host the summit," Ms Hornery said.

"Hopefully no more accidents occur before the government acts, the government need to pay more attention to the health and safety of our Paramedics and listen to them."

Paramedics have and will continue to care and attend to community matters but Ms Hornery wants more safety implementations put in place to prevent hard working Paramedics from being assaulted on duty.

"I'll continue to lobby for the Paramedics in the Hunter, they have a very important job and they don't deserve to be assaulted in line with their duty," Ms Hornery stated.

Souce: NSW Ambulance Jobs

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]