Ambulance service (Still) in Crisis

Rant warning.

Right, Its been all over the news in the last few days. Its now very public knowledge what all of us know already - the service is falling over, slowly. Response times have blown out and are reported to be at 20 mins for the 90th percentile of Code 1 cases. That means on average if you ring an ambulance on a busy night here you have about 90% chance of waiting 20 mins for it. You may be one of the lucky ones who gets an ambulance sooner than that - buy hey if you are ringing an ambulance - in theory, luck is not currently on your side. However you may also be one of the poor buggers who wait even longer than that!

An ambulance Whistleblower got mighty crapped off by the events of the last couple of weeks (as have we all) and went to the media:
http://tinyurl.com/63rgl2c

http://tinyurl.com/6l65h5r

This got the ball rolling and had the Ambulance Service spin coming out with a response that basically blamed:
1. the hospitals for holding us up (Which they do a lot - but proper funding will address this)
2. those lazy paramedics for using their sick leave.

There was no mention of the service itself having an undeniable role in eroding the standard of ambulance coverage through neglect and mis-management. The reason paramedics have sick leave available to them is because they are exposed to a lot of sick people - we have stressed immune systems. We also work shift work, which also makes you more susceptible to illness. We don't eat at regular times and struggle to maintain regular fitness regimes. We deal with an unsupportive management, a low morale work environment and ever increasing workload with ever decreasing conditions.

We are now one of the busiest ambulance services in the country and among the lowest paid. Thank you Mr Whistleblower for your efforts. Lets hope for the staff and the public, something comes of this.