Your views: on ambulance delays and more
Today, readers comment on a failing health system, and trying to avoid catching COVID-19 while society moves on.
Commenting on the story: Absolutely tragic’: Inquiry reveals major failings in ambulance delay death
DIS participants are at increasing risk of serious health consequences, including death, with the ongoing delays in ambulance response times.
Given disability support workers do not have health training and there are few nurses working in disability organisations anymore, this group of people are very dependent on access to and the quality of their GP’s medical and communication skills.
People can’t get an appointment for over a week to see their GP, so, when a health issue escalates for a person with intellectual disability requiring the support of others to live their life, the default action is to call an ambulance. Paramedics arrive, assess and transport many onto Accident and Emergency to sort out their health issues.
Often, the issue has escalated due to a lack of appointments with their GP, who could have proactively managed their health issue earlier and would would not have necessitated the calling of the ambulance. Once they arrive in Accident and Emergency, they are reviewed and sent back to their accommodation with a patch up solution, mainly dependent on seeing their GP … who they can’t get into for more than a week!
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This perpetuation of the cycle extends ambulance call-out times, puts more pressure on Accident and Emergency services and often sees the person getting sicker.
The Health Minister, Chris Picton would be well advised to work with those of us familiar with this issue to find a bespoke solution for NDIS participants with frequent ambulance call-outs. This has been an issue for some time and now is the time to act and address one of the many reasons why people with intellectual disability are known to die 27 years earlier than those without an intellectual disability and that 50% of those deaths are avoidable.
I for one don’t want to see those statistics increase further as another consequence of the pandemic. – Jayne Lehmann
The Government “inherited” the current problems, not from the former Liberal Government of only four years, but from the previous Labor Government of 16 years, and their widely discredited and objectively disastrous “ Transforming Health” plan.
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The lack of hospital beds, and its consequent effects, is directly attributable to the poor planning of the new RAH, which was not only massively expensive, but significantly smaller than was required. The previous Government, with Health Minister Jack Snelling, blundered on with this flawed plan, despite almost every clinician pointing out its deficiencies, and yet they have the gall to try to shift the blame onto the last Government.
Yes, it’s a mess, and yes they have a huge task to try to clean it up. But at least have the honesty to admit that it’s their own mess! – Greg Howe
Commenting on the story: On the inside looking out: Life in personal COVID lockdown
Totally agree with the sentiments expressed in this article. I am 68, immunocompromised and won’t go near crowds, having already succumbed in this situation. Thank goodness for the antivirals.
But the messaging needs to change as I feel my life is not important. I am totally expendable. Oh, she died because she had underlying health conditions. So that makes it OK? I still work three part time jobs and plan to study for a PhD. I am alive and thriving.
The antivirals are too difficult to access. The earlier they are started the better- but under the current system where you can’t get near a GP for at least two weeks, what then? Messaging needs to be collective, not personal. Walking down the street the other day, wearing a N95 mask, a man walking towards stated to his mate, ‘ Here comes the penguin!’ Loud enough to be intentionally heard.
I am sick of trying to keep myself safe in a society that is so apathetic to others. What has happened to community? Political messaging, and more. – Lynda Lovett
