500 signatures reached
To: Ali Cupper Independent Member for Mildura
More Ambulances for Mildura!
Mildura is a fast-growing rural city but unlike other Emergency Service Organisations, Ambulance Victoria has done nothing to increase resourcing levels to match the Mildura population growth since the late 1980s!
Significant growth in population demands an equal growth in Ambulance resourcing to meet community needs. Mildura desperately needs another ambulance running 24hours to respond to emergencies and keep pace with current community demand for ambulance attendance for the sick and injured.
Due to its location, Mildura has often been an afterthought for successive Melbourne-centric governments. We are calling on the Independent Member for Mildura, Ali Cupper to commit to supporting an increase in ambulance resourcing in Mildura.
Why is this important?
Staffing is so stretched in Mildura that Ambulance Victoria has been flying paramedics from Melbourne into Mildura to respond to emergencies.
More and more community members are complaining that they are unable to receive an ambulance when they are in need. This means community members are needlessly suffering because of Ambulance Victoria's understaffing issue.
“Nightshifts are the worst…we simply don’t have enough ambulances at night.” – Mildura Paramedic
Increasingly, Paramedic Crews from Ouyen and Robinvale are being sent to Mildura to assist with workload, leaving the towns uncovered for dangerously long periods of time. It's not unusual for patients to wait extraordinary amounts of time for an ambulance in Ouyen and Robinvale.
Paramedic crews are also being split and having to respond in unequipped ambulances just to meet service demands which is risky for patients and paramedics alike.
“I'm exhausted from the workload… we just can’t keep up.” – Mildura Paramedic
When our healthcare workers are fatigued, overworked and split up, they are at risk of making clinical errors. The Mildura community deserves to receive timely emergency care from paramedics who are not stretched to their limits.