Nurses, Ambulance Officers consider action

Jessica Martin

Critical bed shortages and up to nine-hour waiting times at 
Wollongong Hospital on the NSW south coast have forced ambulance 
drivers and Emergency Department nurses to threaten industrial 
action. Emergency doctors are also said to be up in arms about 
the bed shortages.

Anger has been simmering in the Illawarra since April when the 
Illawarra Health Service closed Bulli Hospital's emergency 
department (the only emergency department between Wollongong and 
Southern Sydney) to ambulances. Since then ambulance officers 
have been forced to take all patients to Wollongong Hospital.

A deputation of nurses in the Wollongong Hospital emergency 
department told senior health officials in the Illawarra last 
week that they were no longer prepared to work under the 
conditions that exist in the hospital.

The Health Services Union (HSU), which represents NSW Ambulance 
Officers held a meeting of delegates last week to consider the 
current crisis in a number of NSW hospitals.

Action plan

Ambulance delegates endorsed a plan of action that includes 
taking their concerns directly to the NSW Minister for Health and 
to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.

The delegates have recommended that:

* There be an immediate increase in Patient Transport Officer 
numbers so that ambulance crews can be made available for 
emergency responses;

* There be an urgent audit to ensure compliance by Area Health 
Service Chief Executive Officers with their 'key performance 
indicator' relating to the 'clearance rate' for ambulances from 
Emergency Departments;

* The Emergency Departments at Bulli, Camden and Mt Druitt be re-
opened for ambulance patients and that no further closures to 
ambulance patients occurs at any other Emergency Department.

General Secretary of the HSU Michael Williamson said "Our members 
have demonstrated considerable good faith today and have 
authorised the union to engage in discussions at the highest 
level to try and achieve some relief to the trolley block issue 
[the dropping off of patients].

"However, they have agreed to reconvene on June 17 to consider 
progress. If we are unable to achieve any significant improvement 
in the Emergency Department access problem, then I think our 
members will have little option but to consider industrial action 
from June 17."