How our paramedics are pushing back on violence and aggression

For a profession entrusted with saving people's lives and being the first responders to life-threatening medical emergencies, ACT paramedics now all too often find themselves in situations where they are getting abused, physically intimidated or at worst, assaulted.

And it's usually the highly stressed family or friends of the victim, sometimes highly intoxicated or drug affected - or both - who are the worst perpetrators.

As one paramedic sagely observed: "sadly, all the respect for our profession falls out the window when you think you are dying, or someone you love is dying".

It deeply troubles them, too, to be called to an emergency but having to park up just around the corner, waiting for police back-up, because they know the location or situation ahead could put them in physical danger.

"Unfortunately, that is our reality now," one paramedic, who did not want to be named, said.

"And then when we get in there, we cop the criticism from the family of 'where have you been? Why didn't you get here sooner?'

"It's because that situation was too dangerous for us to go in alone."

Last year, there were 105 reported incidents in Canberra of ACT paramedics being physically and verbally abused.

Paramedics say hundreds more incidents - whether it's a shove, or a grope by a patient in the back in ambulance, or an obscene "spray" directed against them - go unreported because it has been accepted for years that it "goes with the job".

"Often all this stuff is happening around you while you are trying to work on a patient," another paramedic, Sam, said.

"People throw stuff at you; I've been to a job and started working on someone on the ground in a garage and there's been a bunch of blokes start punching on behind me."

A new public campaign, based on others in Victoria and Western Australia, has been launched by the ACT Emergency Services Agency aimed at raising public awareness of the occupational violence issue with the key message: "Aggression or violence, it's not part of the job".

Behind the message is also a training package which shows paramedics how they can better deal with aggressive or threatening situations, whether it's from the patient, or from those around them at the scene.

READ ALSO:

With the ACT service recently inducting freshly minted young officers who are just three weeks into the job and yet to face the rigours of a nasty encounter, the ESA has brought in an external provider to deliver the training on how to deal with it earlier, rather than later.

"People in the community need to know our staff require space and time to do their work," chief officer Howard Wren, a 49-year veteran of the service, said.

"It's not acceptable that things like threats, abuse and intimidation to our staff go unreported.

"As a service, we have a requirement to provide a safe workplace for our people.

"This [training package] helps our people assess a situation before they go into it, and gives them the tools to deal with it when it happens."

It took until October last year for the ACT Assembly to finally pass legislation specific to first responders, making it an offence to assault an emergency worker, whether it be a police officer, ambulance or firefighter.

However, this does little to protect them from all the other types of abuse and intimidation they encounter all too often.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: