1 week Ago By Hamish Hastie
Irate Perth paramedics are scribbling messages of frustration about ramping and response times on their ambulances after overwhelmingly rejecting a pay offer from their employer, St John WA. One ambulance parked outside Emergency Services Minister Paul Papalia’s office on Tuesday morning bore the message: “WA Health is ‘Cooked’.” An ambulance with union messages parked outside Emergency Service’s Paul Papalia’s office on Tuesday.
The ambulance also had a message comparing hospital ambulance wait times – known as “ramping” – of 819 hours in 2017 to their current level of 5126 hours. St John’s latest pay deal was knocked back by 987 of its 1110 paramedics, prompting the latest round of industrial action, which includes the ambulance messaging. Paramedics are also wearing union attire while on duty, prioritising fatigue management, ceasing work communications outside hours and checking vehicles and equipment only during work hours.
“The ramping crisis continues to worsen, with ambulances spending unprecedented hours waiting outside hospitals instead of responding to emergencies,” an Ambulance Employees Association of WA spokesman said. “In 2017, ambulances were ramped for an average of 819 hours per month. By 2025, that figure has risen to over 5100 hours monthly — a situation that former health minister Roger Cook once described as a ‘crisis’ when it was one-fifth of these hours in 2015.
” The union said emergency responses would continue without interruption and the public could still call 000. “We remain committed to providing life-saving care to the Western Australian community,” the spokesman said. “Our dispute is not with patients, but with an employment agreement that fails to properly value the vital work performed by ambulance professionals across our state, and with WA Health, who prefer to have our members working in the hospital system, rather than responding to the community.
” Premier Roger Cook said he wanted St John Ambulance and the unions to sit down and resolve any differences to make sure there wasn’t any disruption to health services. “We know that the paramedics and St John’s ambulances are committed to patient care and that they’ll do everything to make sure that there’s no disruption to the care for patients that need to get to a hospital,” he said. St John WA was contacted for comment.
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