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New Ambo Service For Donald, Birchip And Woomelang

01 December 2016

The Andrews Labor Government will deliver a new ambulance service for the Donald, Birchip and Woomelang communities to respond to local emergencies faster.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier Colin Brooks today joined locals in Donald to celebrate the new ambulance service in the Southern Mallee and East Wimmera areas.

The new service is part of a record $500 million investment over five years to employ 450 more paramedics, buy new vehicles and build new branches across the state – the largest ever funding boost for Victoria’s ambulance services in a bold plan to improve ambulance response times.

This new service, based on a successful model trialled this year at Wedderburn and Warracknabeal, will feature a paramedic community support coordinator and vehicle.

The paramedic community support coordinator will be an experienced paramedic who can provide a local emergency response, while also training and supervising local volunteer teams who can respond to incidents.

Ambulance performance in Buloke Shire continues to improve, with the average response time of 26:43 minutes an improvement on the 28:11 minute response time in the previous 3 months.

Since coming to government, we’ve been working hard every day to rebuild our ambulance system after four years of crisis and neglect under the Liberals.

Now, after two years of investing in and reforming our ambulance system, more ambulances are arriving at emergencies sooner with Code 1 average response times the quickest they have been in five years.

This funding is in on top of the $144 million provided in the Victorian Budget 2016/17, which included the $60 million Response Time Rescue Fund to improve ambulance response times.

Quotes attributable to Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier Colin Brooks

“We’re putting people across Donald, Birchip and Woomelang first, with investment in local ambulance services to cut response times even further and save lives – fantastic news for locals who deserve the very best health services closer to home.”

Quotes attributable to Member for Western Victoria Jaala Pulford

“Local families in Woomelang, Birchip and Donald can look forward to the peace of mind that emergency care is close by when they need it most.”

“This is an exciting new model for regional and rural communities where a professional paramedic is providing better access to critical care and training-up dedicated local volunteers to respond to emergencies.”

Reviewed 19 August 2020

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