Western Australia SJA info wanted

[hertzvanrental]

Just want to know if any of you guys can post a link with WA SJA clinical practice guidelines. I've searched and can't find anything.

I've got a mate who is making the move from the UK to WA. I'm interested too but would rather ASNSW or Victoria (they are'nt recruiting at the mo).

[Timmy]

I don't think St John have online CPGs available to the public. I could be wrong though.

[hertzvanrental]

What I'm trying to find out is what can they/can't they do compared to that of their counterparts in other parts of OZ.

Are they as advanced as MICA/other ICPs etc etc?

[aussiephil]

Queensland Ambulance have a comparison chart http://www.ambulance.qld.gov.au/recruitment/pdf/EOQ_Matrix_March_2004.pdfthat shows qualifications across the states

[Kiwiology]

What they cannot do is lots, what they can do is kill people.

Stay the bloody hell away from St John in Australia.

Have you looked into South Australia?

[hertzvanrental]

Surely they can't be that bad can they? I mean every service world wide has it's stories of crap medics. I do know of the inquiry into 4 deaths in perth/WA area. Is it the medics themselves or is it more the organisation that is crap? And why is SJA Australia different to SJA NZ?

[Kiwiology]

I saw from another SJA medic that in SA they do not have amiodarone (or any anti arrythmatic) as an example and thier medical director just resigned after an investigation.

St John is almost like the AMR of down under, they have thier finger in a number of pies and do not soley exist to progress Paramedicine as a profession or core activiy of thier being unlike the state run ambulance services.

The St John budget both in WA and NZ is a fraction of what the state ambulance services in AU recieve and St John promotes itself as offering value for money, ie cheap care without significant investment in technology and infrastructure. QAS has over 200 days of supplies stockpiled for resilliance and large quantities of spare vehicles and equipment, whereas St John has few, as an example.

Its not so much that St John are cowbodys its just that they do not exist soley to provide an ambulance service and it sort of gets lost in the mix somewhere.

Yes, StJ in NZ is totally seperate but not without its problems.

[Timmy]

I’m not at all pro St John here, merely remaining on the fence because I have never worked with St John in WA but your criticisms seem a little far fetched Ben. Referring to an ambulance service as “killing people” when you have no first hand knowledge of the events they were involved in, merely second hand gossip from news reports and friends of friends. Running an ambulance service in Western Australia is no easy task, they cover a vast/huge geographic area which is extremely remote and isolated, in fact you could put St John WA in the running for the largest area covered by a single ambulance service (possibly). They rely heavily on volunteers in rural areas because it wouldn’t be feasible or financially viable to have full time paramedics in such areas with low call volumes. They have paramedic shortages as there staff are gobbled up by large, international mining companies who pay there paramedics far more than any state ambulance service could in Australia.

I could pull hundreds of news articles and data on any ambulance service in Australia in regards to there mortality rate. Ambulance Victoria are often in the media for slow response times secondary to limited staff leading to death of patients, there paramedics striked over it, the public makes some noise about it, the government makes promises to fix it – its just the way the wheel turns but at the end of the day your going to get busy times when demand beats supply with a stick, there’s not always enough resources and people die. For the last two years our local news paper has complained about the ambulances services response to an ectopic pregnancy who died because there wasn’t enough ambulances… Sometimes its just the way the cookie crumbles…

[Private Paramedic]

I agree with Timmy here, and I am not promoting St John. In fact, I am going to declare that I work for a company that competes directly with St John for work in the private industry in NSW so there is no conflict of interest/problems. I am also an ex St John NSW volunteer.

We cannot just write the bandaid brigade off due to negative publicity, every organisation has it's inherent idiots that make the rest of us look bad. St John WA got cast into a negative light on 4 corners last year, and it was the system, not the front line staff. ASNSW has patients die in the line of duty, as does every ambulance service in the world. It is the nature of the work that we do, when sometimes you work so hard that you are making deals with deities to save a patient and the deity does not get the request in time.

Recently I had an individual mention that St John is responsible for killing more people than any other ambulance service in the world. When asked to provide evidence, no evidence was forth coming. I would dare say the individual was an ex volunteer with a chip off their shoulder. Let that be a lesson, if you are going to make potentially slanderous comments or libel without any form of evidence (i.e. based on a personal opinion or the opinion of others) be ready to defend your comments in court. I know if I was written off on a forum with someones views about me killing patients, I would be speaking to the solicitors about it.

As an organisation, St John does have its role within the community. They cover the jobs that will not be able to afford our services. St John, with the exception of WA and NT are not in a position to become a replacement ambulance service, but from what I have heard, they are working hard to upgrade skill sets to allow the volunteers to do a little more. Whether volunteers accept this training as current or not remains up to the individual. And like any organisation, there are people who are very good at what they do, and there are some you could not trust with a basic task.

We all have our place. The organisation I work with has the same skill sets as ASNSW, same CPGs and protocols, and yet, it does not make me an ambulance officer. It does not allow me to put flashing lights and sirens on a vehicle and fly down the highway with a patient on board transporting to hospital as it is simply not allowed (Section 67e of the Health Services Act 1997 (NSW) prohibits providing transport for fee or reward without consent of the DG Health). What it does allow us to do is to provide the best in care that is within our scope of practice, CPGs and protocols and expect that the same care will continue after handover for transport.

[BushyFromOz]

St John WA got cast into a negative light on 4 corners last year, and it was the system, not the front line staff.

I have to totally agree with that statement

SJA WA promotes this "volunteer is good enough" ethos and denies communities proper coverage. Now i dont mean to say that individual providers are lesser people because they volunteer, but will sa that SJA WA as an organisation produces sub standard care on the grounds that asking too much from volunteers would reduce the number available, hence they keep the requirments to volunteer at a bare minimum

Having worked with SJA in a volunteer capacity and in private industry, i will also say that those organisations that rely on either volunteers or minimal educational requirements don't exactly ask for steller clinial performance from its staff.

To the OP, Ambulance Victoria will be putting feelers out for qualified aplicants later this year.

Recently I had an individual mention that St John is responsible for killing more people than any other ambulance service in the world. When asked to provide evidence, no evidence was forth coming.

Ahahahahaha! I think this person has told an "old joke" without knowing he was telling an old joke! Its actually a reference to how expansive St John is across the globe, obviously the same one liner is being taken literally now.

Edited March 14, 2011 by BushyFromOz