The huge investment adds up to a $ 1.75 billion lifeline announced Sunday for the state’s ambulance service to employ more than 1,850 additional paramedics and build 30 stations.
Over four years, this funding will also provide 210 additional ambulance support staff, 52 nurses and eight doctors. NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan said the service had been waiting for that momentum for three decades.
NSW Ambulance will release 200 job offers to qualified paramedics on Monday.
The national president of the Union of Health Services, Gerard Hayes, said it was an unprecedented result for tired paramedics who show up daily for 16-hour shifts.
“Our members are very frustrated and upset when they can’t be there in time. They will be given until there is nothing left to give, ”he said.
“This is a generational announcement of a generational investment that will set our state up for a brighter future and ensure that people across NSW, whether they live in metropolitan Sydney or the NSW region … have the best care possible health care “.
Funding announcements follow last month’s compelling report of a parliamentary inquiry into regional hospitals that heard disturbing allegations of critical staff shortages and inadequate resources leading to significantly poorer health outcomes for patients, including premature deaths .
Perrottet said he welcomed the report, but argued that regional health had improved since the Coalition took office in 2011 and that work was continuing.
“It’s not a perfect system. We live in a vast state. Many areas are incredibly remote,” he said.
“It’s a balancing act at all levels. But I’m very proud of the investments we’ve made. We want to have a system, wherever you live in this great state of ours, you have access to this health care.”
Regional Health Minister Bronnie Taylor said rural and regional communities would appreciate the increase in health staffing.
The government has faced a growing wave of industrial unrest this year by teachers, nurses, paramedics and transport workers above a 2.5 per cent public sector wage cap that has failed to keep pace. of the cost of living.
Union delegates met on Sunday and vowed to take more union action if collective bargaining rights, “same job, same pay” contracts and a commitment that rules out further privatizations are not guaranteed in the budget.
A report released by the highest body representing unions on Sunday found that front-line workers would have a worse situation of $ 2,000 to $ 2,500 a year if the wage cap was not raised.
The Prime Minister will not be bold if his government raises the salary cap in the budget, but said the result would be “fair and reasonable”.
Treasurer Matt Kean said the government acknowledged inflationary pressures on wages and would respond more in the coming weeks.
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