THE state government have pledged to reduce demands on Country Fire Service volunteers and improve ambulance services in regional SA, after the CFS chief officer expressed concerns about the increasing requirement for his volunteers to respond to medical incidents.
Mark Jones said CFS volunteers had attended to 1000 medical incidents in the past year, and 14 just last week, saying it was "outside of the scope of their standard duties", without pay and without the same support as paramedics.
Mr Jones' comments were spurred by an announcement by the state government that a taskforce would investigate whether Metropolitan Fire Service resources should be called in to respond in situations where ambulances were unavailable.
"The CFS is not funded in any way for these non-statutory roles and, in the interests of patient safety and the mental well-being of CFS responders, a higher level of training and support would seem to be vital as a starter," Mr Jones said.
"Our volunteers are routinely called upon to attend traumatic events beyond the scope of their firefighting duties and these jobs fall outside of most people's expectations when they join the service.
"I have seen the number of SA Ambulance Service assist jobs, that our volunteers are expected to attend, grow significantly.
"This is something that has occurred without any formal agreement or additional support for our volunteers doing an already tough job."
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Emergency Services Minister Joe Szakacs issued a statement saying the taskforce would only focus on paid MFS firefighters and was designed to ensure nothing more was being asked of CFS volunteers.
Mr Szakacs said they intended to "reduce demand on CFS volunteers and improve services in regions".
"Significant regional investments in health and emergency services will ensure those hardworking men and women that volunteer their time to keep us safe have the resources to do so," he said.
SAAS was not drawn into why the reliance on the CFS had grown, issuing a statement saying the CFS was a fantastic support service and they most often attended incidents "in small communities as first responders such as MVAs, fires, falls and homes where extrication of a patient is required".
"We work closely with the CFS and know that regional communities in country SA value this relationship."
Opposition spokesperson for Emergency Services Adrian Pederick said the state could not view country firefighters as "volunteers that can just plug a hole".
"Peter Malinauskas was elected to 'fix the ramping crisis', not to heap huge amounts of extra pressure on our wonderful CFS volunteers," he said.
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"If the government wants more help for our battling ambos, further training and upskilling of volunteers is non-negotiable, otherwise CFS members will be hung out to dry when attempting to deal with complex medical incidents.
"Detailed guidelines would also need to be established to identify what callouts the CFS would be required to respond to."
