The incident on Saturday.
For almost AN HOUR last Saturday afternoon at McLean Oval, Crookwell Senior Green Devils Football Club’s Jack Dawson waited with his dislocated ankle, prior to an Ambulance’s arrival to transfer him to Calvary Hospital in Canberra.
The issue isn’t the first time it has happened in the bush and it will unlikely be the last under a system where hard-working ambulance personnel are asked to cover other towns and pool their resources together on a regular basis.
At the time of the incident, Harden’s only Ambulance vehicle was already out on another job, transporting a patient to Canberra who was involved in a significant accident with a circular saw.
As the vehicle did not leave Canberra to return to Harden until the late afternoon, the nearest Ambulance vehicle available to Harden had to be called upon and this was from Boorowa, some 42km away.
After this closest vehicle was sent, it arrived arriving at approximately 4pm.
Paramedics stabilised Jack and realised they would require assistance to transport him to Canberra.
A backup Ambulance vehicle was then dispatched at 4.30pm and that arrived around 4.55pm before leaving for Canberra.
An Ambulance spokesperson said it is not unusual for trauma patients to be taken directly to a major hospital, bypassing local hospitals, especially if the patients require specialised treatment such as surgery and/or scans.
In that circumstance the Ambulance is no longer available until they return but should another emergency occur, the closest ambulance will always be dispatched.
This was the case with Jack.
Around the area, towns such as Goulburn, Queanbeyan, Wagga Wagga, Albury and Griffith have multiple Ambulance crews on duty, due to the workload, however, most towns only have one Ambulance crew on duty 24 hours per day.
On many occasions due to unpredictable workloads Ambulance crews are called upon to support calls in surrounding towns.
It is not unusual for the Harden crew to attend calls in Boorowa, Cootamundra and Young.
Additionally, helicopters are available in Canberra, Orange, Wollongong and Bankstown to support Ambulance crews with patients involved in trauma or serious medical conditions.
But due to the unpredictable workload ambulance helicopters are being overworked too.
On Sunday afternoon when a helicopter landed in Young for a job, it had already attended three jobs since it first took off that morning.
A week ago in an incident that occurred between Wombat and Harden, two helicopters were required for the job.
One arrived from Orange and landed soon, while a second one came from Bankstown and took up to an hour as other nearby helicopters were unavailable.
With three grades of rugby league as well as a game of rugby union and more than 100 participants in Horse Trials in town last Saturday, Crookwell Green Devils Media Officer Danica Lenane said it was “frightening” to imagine what itwould have been like, if Jack’s injury was a neck injury or worse.
“Jack had a fairly long wait considering it was a pretty nasty injury, with no pain relief during the wait,” she said.
“We are fortunate over here [Crookwell] because we have a small local hospital as well as Goulburn being so close.
“It’s unfortunate, incidents like Saturday. But they made us realise we definitely take these things for granted.”
Just last weekend, The Daily Telegraph reported on a growing issue where, “NSW Police are being forced to act as Ambulance officers and transport patients to hospital in a growing trend aimed at plugging holes in the health system”.
“We attend and either wait for extended period of time for an Ambulance to be attached to the job or we end up transporting the patient to hospital [normally mental health],” a police officer wrote in a letter to the NSW Police Association, as featured in the article.
The Daily Telegraph article then stated that NSW Ambulance said it was looking into addressing the issue of a shortage of Ambulance officers.
“To help meet increasing demands, NSW Ambulance will deploy 100 paramedics earlier than planned as part of the NSW Government’s commitment to recruit 750 new paramedics and control centre staff over four years from 2018,” NSW Ambulance said in the article.
In an ABC Adelaide report earlier this week, the South Australian Ambulance Employees Association finally saw light at the end of the tunnel.
After many months of petitions to their state government, they were provided an extra 74 Ambulance workers.
In exchange, paramedics were asked to clean their protest messages from the vehicles.
One chalk writing on the window of the ambulance vehicle spelled, “I can’t save lives if I’m ramped”.
Since last weekend, The Times reached out to Member for Cootamundra Steph Cooke MP and she has since referred the incident to NSW Ambulance requesting a review and a response.
“I will continue to fight for more paramedics to join our local stations across the electorate, and ensure our existing paramedics have the resources they need to deliver the highest quality care to patients when they need it most,” she said.
Ms Cooke MP said she will also refer the incident to the NSW Health Minister, if necessary.
On February 8, 2019, Harden Ambulance Station was officially opened as part of of the NSW Government’s $232 million Rural Ambulance Infrastructure Reconfiguration Program, aimed at improving the facility for paramedics.
Money poured in by the State Government towards the state-of-the-art facility includes parking bays of up to three Ambulance vehicles at any one time, although only one is homed at the station.
More has to be done to better resource and relieve the pressure of rural paramedics on the ground, to ensure agonies like Crookwell rugby league player Jack Dawson doesn’t happen again.
Meanwhile, Jack is said to be well at the moment, having undergone successful surgery last Sunday following a fracture to his fibula during a tackle where he went in and his foot was stepped on.
He is unable to bear weight on his foot for the next six weeks and will not be returning to the field for the rest of this season.
Christopher Tan
