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Katie Woolf spoke with Director Ambulance Service Andrew Thomas on Paramedic attacked on Tuesday · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Three sixty with Katie Wolf. Everyone is listening to mixed
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: one or four point nine one.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: You know that earlier in the week there were reports
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: of another paramedic here in the territory being assaulted. Joining
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: us on the line is the Director of Ambulance Services,
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  Speaker 2: Andrew Thomas. Good morning, Andrew, Good morning Katie Andrew. How
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: is that paramedic who was assaulted earlier in the week.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So we've been following up with that paramedic and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: they're rather recovering from the busy gre injuries. Obviously, they've
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: still been off work at the moment and we're continued
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  Speaker 1: to support them and the system with their return to
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: be able to come back to it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It's unfortunately not the only incident of this nature. Firstly, though,
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  Speaker 2: can you tell us what happened in this instance?
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  Speaker 1: So the paramedic and the crew had responded situation and
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  Speaker 1: who we're treating patient, and you know, in one of
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  Speaker 1: those situations where everything seemed to be going all right,
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  Speaker 1: the patient was been loaded in the emmits on the
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  Speaker 1: way and then the situations sort of rapidly escalated and
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  Speaker 1: then resulted in the paramedics sort of receiving blows to
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  Speaker 1: their head and body from the person within the email.
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  Speaker 1: So the crew stopped and sort of got out and
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  Speaker 1: were very quickly supported by the police to deal with
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  Speaker 1: the situation. A paramedic then obviously we ended up going
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  Speaker 1: through the hospital and being assessed and then providing some
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  Speaker 1: statements about what had happened. And then there's said, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we're supporting them as they're taking their time to recover
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  Speaker 1: from the incident.
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  Speaker 2: Goodness mate. Now it follows on from another attack just
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  Speaker 2: last week in Ellie Springs. We're a patient through an
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  Speaker 2: object at a paramedic hitting them in the head.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and a similar situation where situation escalated and you know,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the paramedic received a blow to the head and again
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  Speaker 1: resulted in that person needing to go to hospital and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: being off work for a couple of shifts. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's while these type events that have an impact on
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  Speaker 1: our paramedics and you know it's you know, they paramedics
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  Speaker 1: love their job, they love getting out training the people
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  Speaker 1: and my wealth. But you know, as I said, unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: and while we have systems in place to support them
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  Speaker 1: and to do dynamic risk assessments from the moment the
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  Speaker 1: calls being taken you know, as they arrive and all
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  Speaker 1: the things, but sometimes things just out of the unexpectedly,
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  Speaker 1: or situations escalate and we end up with our crews
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  Speaker 1: being the subject of violence or aggression towards them, and
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  Speaker 1: you know, it does wear down on the paramedics. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's an unfortunate aspect that seems to becoming all too common,
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  Speaker 1: not just with paramedics, but you know across the the
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  Speaker 1: wider health sector and across Australia, and you know it
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  Speaker 1: does have a long, longer term impact on paramedics and
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  Speaker 1: also then you know, the short term impact is also
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  Speaker 1: that it reduces our crewing and capacity to respond to
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  Speaker 1: incidents and when those crews need to come off the road, well.
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  Speaker 2: And it's just so unnecessary. You know, we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: our paramedics and like you'd rightly pointed out more broadly,
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  Speaker 2: our health professionals trying to help people and then to
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  Speaker 2: assault the person that's trying to help you is just unbelievable.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, and we know that, you know, when someone
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  Speaker 1: calls for a medical emergency, or there's a beer coal accident,
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  Speaker 1: or the number of various different types of incidents that
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: we go to, some of them can be highly emotional.
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  Speaker 1: We know that, you know, people can be extremely worried
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  Speaker 1: about their relatives. You know, we know that these sort
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: of things happen. But you know, what we're requesting is
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that you know, staff, you know, that our staff be
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: given the space and give give them the respect to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: allow them to do their job and understand, and our
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: crews are very good at you know, being able to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: come in and calm situations down and manage situations, and
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  Speaker 1: but you know, having that just ability and some respect
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  Speaker 1: for our staff to let them do their job. And
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  Speaker 1: you know, you know, the violence, it seems and aggression
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  Speaker 1: only delays the ability for the care to be provided
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  Speaker 1: to patient and Andrew.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Is that what we can all do here, you know,
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  Speaker 2: as a broader community just really continue to you know,
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  Speaker 2: to point out the fact that this is entirely unacceptable.
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  Speaker 1: We look, it is unacceptable. And as we've said before,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you know, we want our ability for our
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: staff to go on, you know, given the opportunity to
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  Speaker 1: do the job that they love and to be able
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  Speaker 1: to treat people. But you know, if if there is
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  Speaker 1: violence or aggression that things you know, our staff in
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  Speaker 1: a long with in line with the basic first Aid principles,
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  Speaker 1: which is, you know, don't you look for danger and
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: danger to self firth, they will withdraw if they need
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  Speaker 1: to and which delays care. And if we are having
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  Speaker 1: our staff being you know where we're having assaults against
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: them all where else, we will be supporting them to
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  Speaker 1: go through the process of making statements of police and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: then following through that with a legal approach.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is totally fair enough. I really appreciate you
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  Speaker 2: having a chat with us this morning, Andrew. And look,
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  Speaker 2: this type of thing just should not be happening to
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  Speaker 2: our wonderful paramedics and on behalf of the rest of
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  Speaker 2: the community. We very much appreciate the work that you
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  Speaker 2: guys do.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you very much. And our paramedics do do
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  Speaker 1: an amazing job. They're out there in all types of
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  Speaker 1: weather and all types of situations. And then you know,
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  Speaker 1: as I said, as I've said before, they do it
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  Speaker 1: because you know, they have an absolute passion for the
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  Speaker 1: role and the job they do, and you know they
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  Speaker 1: want to continue to do that. So and we appreciate
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  Speaker 1: the acknowledgment of the work that they're doing.
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  Speaker 2: Andrew Thomas, the director of Ambulance Service for Saint John Paramedics,
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  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for your time today.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you