The ambos asked me to come out of retirement Heres why I said no

By Kez Thompson September 13, 2021 â€" 11.45am

This is how bad it actually is. I retired last October after 34 years as an intensive care paramedic. I was mentally shattered from the relentless tragedy and having to deal with an incompetent, bullying management that only cared about covering up a broken system that wasn’t even coping before COVID-19.

Last Friday, NSW Ambulance cold-called me to see if I would consider returning. I said no. I don’t blame the very nice person who called. They had been given a list of paramedics who’d retired in the past year, so were probably still registered.

Kez Thompson is a retired intensive care paramedic.

This is the first I have heard from them since I left. No one ever gets a check on their welfare. Indeed, during my entire career, only one manager asked if I was OK after a big case, but it took 31 years and said more about that person than ambulance management.

I talk to my colleagues in Sydney. They’re broken. Junior paramedics have to train student paramedics who are rushed to the frontline before they are ready. Older, experienced paramedics are totally burnt out. One recently confessed to me that he just goes “into zombie mode”.

In rural areas, paramedics work not only their day shifts but are on call in between. The lack of resources and doctors in these areas forces emergency ambulances to transport patients with even minor conditions to base hospitals, leaving the towns with no emergency cover, usually for many hours. Country paramedics have a saying: “You’ll never drive any car as exhausted as you will drive an ambulance.” COVID has greatly increased transfers, but with no increase in staff.

Imagine being the one to continually call people desperately needing emergency care and saying there are no ambulances available â€" and you don’t know when there will be.

The continuing churn of good people out of this profession is obscene. It’s criminal.

And it is not just the frontline paramedics. The control room staff who take the 000 calls and the dispatchers are leaving work each day in tears of frustration. Imagine being the one to continually call people desperately needing emergency care and saying there are no ambulances available â€" and you don’t know when there will be. This is happening hundreds of times each day across the state. It’s disgusting, I know because I’ve had to do it.

None of these problems are new. Management has known about them for years. It’s only now that the problems are exacerbated to such an extent that they are impossible to hide.

During my 34 years with the service, I knew six colleagues who took their own lives, as did at least 30 others I didn’t know personally. I’ve seen countless others turn to chronic and dangerous self-medicating, just to get through each day.

There will be many, many victims of this pandemic who’ll never be counted. And our gutless state leaders have gone into hiding.

Kez Thompson is a retired intensive care paramedic.

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