A Consultation with Flinders’ Paramedics Prior to the Marshall Government’s abandonment of Covid-zero, and subsequent re-opening of state borders late last year, the SA Ambulance Service (SAAS) announced their new COVID-19 Resilience Plan. The plan aimed to soften the blow caused by the government’s decision and introduced a range of measures intended to provide life-support to SA’s crumbling healthcare system. A key component of this plan was the fast-tracked recruitment of qualified paramedics and the retraining of final year paramedic students to allow for a standby workforce of ambulance drivers. As Flinders is the only university in South Australia that offers a Bachelor of Paramedic Science, this standby workforce was pulled entirely from our own community. The treatment of healthcare and frontlines workers has been an ongoing conversation since the beginning of the pandemic. However, their own voices are often missing from the
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conservation - whether it be due to the inherent selflessness of their work, or outright censorship (see: the Marshall government banning the chalking of ambulances in the lead-up to the state election). So, Empire Times sat down with a few paramedic science students/alumni to ask – What do you think of the plan? Florence (name changed), a recent Paramedic Science graduate, thinks it is ‘a complete waste of time and effort’. Florence argues that these recruits are all ‘qualified paramedics, with bachelor’s degrees, registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’. What South Australia needs, Florence says, is ‘more paramedics, not drivers’. Florence is pointing out what everyone, except the government, seems to know – that this plan does not address the underlying issues with the South Australian healthcare system. In fact, the SA Ambulance Employee Association’s Industrial Officer, Josh Kasprowicz, has
