New mega lift ambulance unveiled
Two new mega lift ambulance vehicles were unveiled by the NSW Minister for Health,
John Della Bosca, on Sunday 15 February 2009 increasing the fleet to five.
The new mega lift ambulances are designed to meet the increasing numbers of obese people requiring transport to public hospitals throughout the State. In 2002, 45 patients required the mega lift ambulance compared to 576 in 2008, an increase of 1,100 per cent. The vehicles will be rotated as required to meet areas of most need.
The new ambulances which cost $280,000 each are mainly used to transport people who weigh in excess of 180 kilograms or people whose girth is too large for the normal ambulance stretcher. The stretchers are rated to carry a patient of up to 500 kilograms in weight with no exertion on paramedics when loading and unloading. The new ambulances feature hydraulic access ramps that can weigh patients and a specially designed stretcher fitted with a scissor-like hydraulic lifting system.
The vehicles have also been designed to be multi-purpose and can be used by medical retrieval teams and for counter terrorism. The back of the vehicle is totally isolated and sealed off from the cab allowing paramedics wearing protection equipment to treat a contaminated patient or a patient who may have ingested an organophosphate, such as nerve gas. The new vehicles can carry up to ten paramedics in the event of a major emergency.
The recently released Garling Report into acute care services in public hospitals advises we need to use ambulance resources and the skills of paramedics more effectively, these new ambulances are an excellent way of meeting the changing health needs of the community and improving patient care.
The vehicle was developed in consultation with on-road paramedics and with input from the helicopter retrieval teams including doctors from the Bankstown Helicopter Base.
Photograph: The hydraulic stretcher will make loading patients much safer and easier for paramedics.
Ambulance is committed to assisting the community create safer and healthier environments and outcomes by making prevention everyone’s businesses. A number of innovative community education programs have been implemented to assist identify life threatening conditions, understand what to do in an emergency and the importance of adopting illness prevention strategies.