Thursday, 18 March 2021

Ambulance services

Mr McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (17:06): (5823) My adjournment is for the Minister for Ambulance Services, and the action that I seek is that the minister immediately intervene in and withdraw a charge that has been made by Ambulance Victoria to a family in my electorate for a recent ambulance ride. Jason Reeves and his family live in Wangaratta. He has contacted me to voice and escalate his concerns regarding the conduct and performance of Ambulance Victoria with regard to obtaining a membership for his family. Having recently returned to Australia from living overseas, on 9 February Jason’s wife attempted to obtain a family membership with Ambulance Victoria through the AV website online portal. As a consequence of the website being unable to facilitate that membership, she followed the directions and sent an email to the membership team requesting a family membership, of which I have a copy. They still had not received a reply when on 26 February their son Jensen Reeves broke his arm at school and was transported by ambulance to the Wangaratta base hospital, Northeast Health, for emergency treatment. Still not having been responded to by AV, they became concerned.

After making inquiries with St Bernard’s Primary School staff, they were unclear about their position with regard to the cost and Jason therefore attempted to raise a query with the senior management of Ambulance Victoria. He has since received a call from the customer service manager, who understood the unfortunate timing of the situation and assured the family that the invoice would be placed on hold and a staff member from the membership team would contact him. Sure enough, they were contacted on 10 March, advising them that they were prepared to implement a family membership, but the coverage would not be backdated and an invoice for the ambulance ride on 26 February would still be sent for payment. I believe this is absolutely unacceptable. The Reeves family tried to take out a subscription, but due to inadequacies of AV they could not complete the membership. But their intentions were made clear—they wanted coverage from 9 February 2021. I seek that the minister intervene and have AV withdraw the invoice for a trip that should have been covered by their membership.