News
18th December, 2020
BALSECC Clinician Grievance & PIN
Appointed Clinicians from Ballarat State Emergency Communications Centre (BALSECC) lodged a formal grievance regarding workload, inadequate staffing, and safety concerns in the BASLSECC control room.
The members involved had all raised safety concerns for many years about the lack of appropriate Clinician numbers and their inability to respond to crew requests including consultations and clinical advice, liaise with hospitals and hospital notifications.
While Clinician workload has significantly increased over the years, there has been no increase in permanent Clinicians at BALSECC and the temporary COVID-19 Clinician has since been removed.
The appointed Clinicians for BALSECC, Lach Garvey, Tony Balm, Clive Jones, John Davis and Graham McGrath (all appointed Clinicians) felt they had no alternative but to lodge a formal grievance.
A meeting was held on 28 October 2020 with the appointed Clinicians, Ambulance Victoria (AV) Communications management and the VAU.
No resolution was reached in that meeting, however AV did acknowledge the concerns raised and agreed to pursue options for increased Clinician staffing. To their credit, AV Communications management did genuinely take this request further up the chain to more senior management.
Meanwhile the VAU advocated to the AV CEO Tony Walker and the Ministers Office for funding for increased Clinician staffing.
Finally, the members approached the BALSECC Health and Safety Representative Steph Porter to request assistance via a Provisional Improvement Notice (PIN). The PIN was issued on 4 December 2020 sighting risk to patient safety, crew safety, and the mental and physical safety and wellbeing of the Rural Clinicians.
On Wednesday 16 December 2020, the VAU received confirmation from AV Director Communications Centres Harley Berridge that an additional Clinician position would be funded at BALSECC. BALSECC Clinicians will be meeting with AV today to negotiate a new roster options to incorporate the extra Clinician position.
This is an excellent result and a good example of members, active HSRs, AV and the VAU working together to achieve an outcome.
In solidarity