For many years HACSU has been asking AT for a set of business continuity plans (BCPs) to become the basis of crisis response when things go wrong, when equipment fails, when stations are unavailable, when trucks break, when there are MCIs or when there are staff shortages.

For years AT has told us there’s just no way to predict these things as scenarios are too dynamic to ‘plan out’. Frankly, we say that is horse shit!

On Saturday night in the southern region including the close double branches we had just 10 of the normal 18 night shift paramedics on duty, which resulted in no less than 6 ambulances being staffed with PTS employees as drivers. This was an unprecedented event with an unprecedented response and we thank those members who supported the frontline overnight, but we are very concerned by a number of questions:

‍Why wasn’t there a plan?‍

‍What was the interagency communication?‍

‍What was sorted with other regions and hospitals?

‍‍Was extra staffing allowed in other regions to ‘standby or relocate’ during the shift?‍

‍What powers did CommCen staff have to tell low acuity cases to make their own way to hospital?‍

‍Were extra CommCen employees offered work to help manage the region?

‍We want AT to discuss this topic with us and implement plans that are worthwhile. BCPs are a normal part of doing business and it’s simply not good enough for AT to suggest they have no need for them.