With over 50 inquiries in 75 years, Australian communities continue to suffer from the impact of extreme events whether fires, floods, cyclones, or other emergencies. Einstein is reported to have said 'Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'. The insanity may not lie in responding to fires and emergencies the same way, and facing another tragedy, but in reviewing these events in the same way and expecting the quasi-judicial process to identify how to prevent the next one. This paper argues that it is time to do the post-event review in a different way and suggests some possible options for new approaches to learning lessons from tragedy.
This paper identifies that there is a growing private ambulance sector, notwithstanding legislative prohibitions on the provision of ambulance services that exist in nearly all Australian State and Territories. Notwithstanding these prohibitions, there appears to be no intention to prosecute private ambulance providers and, indeed, governments probably appreciate that these services fill a need and reduce the demand for non-emergency services on state run ambulance services.
The paper will define what is meant by ambulance services and describes what is prohibited in each Australian jurisdiction and then argue that, to ensure that the providers of ambulance services continue to deliver a quality service to the public, there should be a legally sanctioned system to register paramedics and the use of various titles associated with the prehospital sector must be restricted.
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