Brendan Simpkins

GAWLER is still being serviced by a single ambulance more than a year after a campaign was launched for a second truck to be stationed in town.

Resources are reportedly stretched thin, with jobs in surrounding areas of Blakeview to Angle Vale and as far north as Burra, resulting in Gawler having the worst response times in the state.

Paramedic and Ambulance Employees Association (AEA) rep Neil Gallagher said staff at Gawler were logging more than 400 kilometres of travel a night.

Staff can work 10-hour shifts without a break and 14-hour night shifts, causing stress and fatigue issues.

Of the 28 staff members in the Gawler and Barossa area, seven are on permanent work cover with back injuries or psychological injuries.

According to Mr Gallagher, morale at the station is so low that more than 50 per cent of staff are actively looking to leave.

“Even though metro is terrible also, it is better than here,” he said.

“There are people that have been in this service for decades who are waiting for positions to come up and they will go.”

Member for Light Tony Piccolo said two recent Gawler incidents highlighted the negative impact cuts to the ambulance service were having on the local community.

One incident prior to Christmas involved an injured pedestrian being left on the Murray Street pavement on a 38 degree day for close to an hour waiting for an ambulance.

“The unreasonable wait for an ambulance to arrive was not only distressing to the woman involved but also to other emergency service workers who gave assistance to her,” he said.

“Our community and emergency services workers deserve better than this.

“Fortunately, the incident was not life-threatening as under those terrible hot conditions she may not have survived.”

Another recent incident involved an elderly man waiting 20 minutes for an ambulance to be dispatched from Parafield while having a heart attack.

Due to the delay, the man passed away before being admitted to the catheterization laboratory at the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

Fellow AEA Rep Chris Robson said mental health patients were waiting up to four hours for medical attention.

“They are being bumped down to the bottom of the list because they don’t believe that they are critical enough,” he said.

“They are tying up police resources waiting for us to turn up…

“By the time we get to see them, these patients are so ramped up that we have got to sedate them.”

Due to the long wait times for ambulances to be called out, patients have allegedly been forced to drive themselves to either the Gawler Hospital or the Lyell McEwin to receive medical attention.

Volunteer crews from areas such as Mallala, Kapunda and Hamley Bridge spend more time attending to jobs in Gawler, while 30 per cent of Angaston’s jobs are located in the Gawler area.

From November 2019 to November 2020 an 11 per cent increase in workload for local paramedics was recorded.

Mr Robson said it was an hour turnaround from Gawler to the Lyell McEwin, however that could balloon out to up to three hours if ramping occured.

At lunchtime on Tuesday, the Lyell McEwin was at code red, with 56 patients being treated or waiting to be treated in the emergency department, according to SA Health’s Ambulance Service Dashboard.

The ED’s capacity is 51 patients.

Mr Gallagher recounted situations where Gawler had been without an ambulance for seven hours.

Shadow Health spokesperson Chris Picton said the state’s ambulance services are currently in a “crisis”.

“That is affecting the northern suburbs and Gawler as much as anywhere else,” he said.

“What we have seen in the latest budget is funding is going, that is a recipe, unfortunately for disaster. Particularly, Gawler has had an issue for some time, and there has been absolutely no response from the Government to address those issues.”

A SAAS spokesperson told The Bunyip the service operates a dynamic deployment model, meaning the closest ambulance responds to all emergencies.

“Towns in many regional communities, including those surrounding Gawler, work as a cluster to provide ambulance coverage in their area,” they said.

“SAAS has eight ambulance stations in the northern suburbs and multiple stations across country SA that serve the Barossa/Gawler area.

“The safety of South Australians is paramount and SAAS is constantly reviewing its service delivery model to ensure that we continue to provide a safe and sustainable service.

“SAAS is currently exceeding its priority one target of 60 per cent and responding to 69.6 per cent of cases in 8 minutes or less.”

A $5.38 million station in Parafield was opened in 2018 to provide additional capacity in the northern suburbs.

SAAS and AEA will return to the South Australian Employment Tribunal (SAET) later this year in relation to issues around meal breaks, the use of overtime and ramping.