Ambulance service failing

A respected retired surgeon and former Bunbury mayor has spoken out on Bunbury’s ambulance service, saying the city had a better service in the 1980s than it has today.

Dr Ern Manea is campaigning for improved service for Bunbury emergency patients in the wake of the death of nine-month-old Blaze Aunins after baby Blaze and his mother were forced to wait formore than 20 minutes for an urgent ambulance last year.

Dr Manea is calling on the ambulance service to immediately add a transport ambulance to take low-acuity patients to and from hospital, making ambulances available for emergencies.

‘‘I don’t know why we’ve reached this state,’’ he said.

‘‘We’re a big State, you can’t concentrate all your activity in Perth.’’

In a letter obtained by the South Western Times from St John Ambulance service director Len Fiori to Dr Manea’s former colleague and Blaze’s diagnosing doctor Bu O’Brien, Mr Fiori confirmed there was only one full-time career ambulance crew in Bunbury.

This is despite St John Ambulance previously confirming therewere three ambulances available at the Bunbury sub-centre.

Dr Manea said in the 1980s there were five ambulances with three crews in Bunbury.

He said the current paramedics were excellent but more crews were needed as well as the transport ambulance.

The letter also revealed a workload increase of 14 per cent over the five years to 2010, with an average priority wait time in 2005-2006 of 9.24 minutes, increasing to 11.6 minutes in 2009-2010.

Volunteer crews from Australind and Capel also support Bunbury’s career paramedics.

In the case of Blaze Aunins, the Bunbury crew was already directed to a callout and were unable to attend so a volunteer crew from Capel was tasked to attend.

Mr Fiori confirmed the Australind sub-centre was to receive funding to support an extra five paramedics over the next two financial years.

‘‘In addition to thiswe are seeking to appoint a project manager to develop a proposal for the trial of a transport ambulance in the Bunbury regionwith the intention of reducing the involvement of paramedic and volunteer ambulance crews in routine low-acuity work,’’Mr Fiori said in the letter.

Dr Manea said he was pleased with these potential changes, but would keep asking for confirmed dates regarding when these changes would be put in place.

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