Communique to members – Health and Community Services Union, 4 March 2024
Ambulance workers furious at being targeted
Hi,
Over the weekend, we learned that the Government and the Head of the State Service are considering taking action against one of your colleagues for speaking out about the current state of ambulance services and the impact on the community and on you.
Instead of focusing on the issues and delivering a plan to ease the immeasurable pressure that you’ve been under for years, they are talking about going after your colleague and trying to silence public sector health workers from telling the community about the realities facing our services.
It is totally unacceptable.
Your HACSU Ambulance Employee Sub-branch Executive are ready to impose further and serious industrial action if the government do not back down from targeting workers.
This will likely include authorising all members to speak directly to the media and rolling stop work meetings.
Your voice matters, and you have every right to talk to the community about the state of your services without fear of reprisal from those in power.
We have some critical issues to address like ramping and staffing shortages just for starters, and we should not have to worry about the government targeting workers.
We’ll be out to see you over the next couple of weeks to deliver some new t-shirts, and we’ll let you know more about the mandatory offload procedure soon too.
Bob
March 5, 2024 at 10:14
Graffiti allowed, though.
Helen Adkins-Sherston
March 5, 2024 at 13:00
This government is similar to a despotic country under the rule of a tyrant or dictator. I have been to the RHH and have seen the terrible wait lists within the Emergency Department, with it having to have the RHH send out a taxi to drive me to the hospital with an emergency issue. All the paramedics were under pressure to deliver other patients.
Unfortunately, Rocky is from the Bible Belt of Tasmania where they are ignorant, and only interested in the agricultural sector. The Rule of Karma is about to hit them full time.
Roderick
March 5, 2024 at 23:45
Helen, I am always amused during Christmas and New Year when I see cars and four wheel drive utes with antlers sticking up from the tops of their doors, and even with bullbars wrapped in tinsel. This past Christmas, in the greater Hobart area, I only saw two cars with antlers, and just a few utes with tinsel wrapped around their bullbars.
The Health minister banned antlers and tinsel being displayed on ambulances while claiming they could dislodge and cause injuries. I wonder if the minister realises that those antlers are made from foam and then covered in a brown fabric, or did he think they were bone antlers?
I can understand the tinsel ban because if it’s dislodged from a vehicle the coloured aluminium foil could come into contact with innocent members of the public and result in severe lacerations. Easter draws closer, so will rabbits be banned from vehicles? Perhaps crucifixes may be permitted.
Roderick
March 6, 2024 at 00:05
My elderly neighbour has had a couple of troubling falls in the last two years and the ambulance paramedics were so kind, caring and professional and efficient – unlike a certain government I could name. The paramedics deserve far more support and assistance than they receive from the government now.