Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What is going on in Queensland with the Beattie government? They cannot run the hospital system, they cannot run the police force and they cannot run the ambulances. I want to illustrate that with some examples from my city of Townsville, Australia’s largest tropical city.

This week Queensland Ambulance Service staff have said, ‘We are worn out.’ At night there are only two ambulances on duty to cover the whole of the city. The staff are suffering from fatigue from working long hours. How would you be if you were an ambulance officer and you were sent to Hughenden to pick up a patient to bring back to Townsville, an 800-kilometre round trip, and were then immediately sent to Ayr, another 85 kilometres and double that as a round trip, and then, when you got back to Townsville having travelled nearly 1,000 kilometres, to have the system send you out to Charters Towers, another 240-kilometre round trip, in a day?

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