Paramedics are treating 20 people with gunshot wounds each week as Ambulance Victoria pushes for the state’s laws to better protect its staff and the community. A parliamentary inquiry into the state’s gun laws has been told that about half of the gun-related emergencies attended by paramedics were psychiatric and suicidal episodes. Ambulance Victoria chief Tony Walker said the presence of firearms in these cases created “an unacceptable risk for staff entering a scene”.
November 6, 2019
Police are investigating the cause of a bushfire that came dangerously close to a Loxton aged care facility in South Australia’s Riverland, prompting an evacuation overnight. The fire, which has been contained, started about 2:00am and has burnt through about 20 hectares. It took 110 firefighters a couple of hours to contain the blaze, which was burning in a south-westerly direction towards homes and a school in Loxton. At the height of the fire, some residents at Loxton’s Riverview Lutheran Rest Home were evacuated from their cottages into the home’s main facility. The home’s chief executive officer Nicolle Jachmann said “everyone’s safe, everything’s fine” and residents had now returned to their homes.
November 6, 2019
A carer who punched an 81-year-old dementia patient in Wollongong, New South Wales, has been described by a judge as “poisonous and nasty”. Alicia Gawronski was on Thursday found guilty of the common assault and intimidation of Gladys Buchanan in her Thirroul home in August last year. During the hearing police released shocking, expletive-laden videos they had filmed outside the elderly woman’s home. “You’re a carry-on candy and full of shit,” Gawronski can be heard saying in the video. In the videos Ms Buchanan can be heard whimpering and moaning, along with the sound of slapping. Ms Buchanan’s neighbour, Stephen Leebold had called police concerned about the noise coming from inside the house. “There was no way you would talk to a human being like that unless you were trying to denigrate them,” Mr Leebold said. “And that is exactly what she was doing.” In court on Thursday, Gawronski said the slapping noise was the sound her hitting herself in an attempt to gain the elderly woman’s attention. “Me slapping myself to get her attention, when she goes into these episodes she is not there anymore, it is quite heartbreaking,” she said. “But I am trying to get her to come back.” Police said they also saw the offender hit the woman on the thigh as she sat on the floor, without her pants on, while having her nappy changed. Gawronski repeatedly denied ever assaulting Ms Buchanan, but she said she did have to touch her thighs when changing her, which she did “with a closed fist,” she said, “because I have acrylic nails and they are razor sharp.” She also defended some of the threats in the video, including: “If you keep behaving like this, you’ll be going to a nursing home, and I’m going to make sure it’s the worst one available.”
November 6, 2019
A bricklayer who threatened a nurse with a sawn-off shotgun while sexually assaulting her alongside his mate vomited in court after he was told he would be spending the next four months behind bars. Nicholas Morse, 23, held the gun centimetres from the 25-year-old victim’s ribs at his home in regional Victoria, also squeezing her breasts and buttocks through her clothes as he forced himself on her amid a barrage of vulgar taunts.
November 6, 2019
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and Lyndorch Living Limited are in midst of a s.739 (Application to deal with a dispute) before Fair Work Commissioner Harper-Greenwell in Court 8 and Conference Room E – Level 6 in Melbourne at 10am.
November 6, 2019
A s.394 (unfair dismissal) claim made by Sarah Stephens against 727Dentist.com has been rejected by Fair Work Deputy President Dean in Sydney on 4 November 2019. Ms Stephens failed to pay her application fee.
November 6, 2019
Couran Cove Maintenance Pty Ltd is fighting a s.394 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy) in front of Commissioner Simpson in chambers in Brisbane at 10am (Woods).
November 4, 2019
Monash Health has a s.739 (Application to deal with a dispute) with which it must deal before Fair Work Commissioner Cirkovic in Court 11 – Level 5 and Conference Room A – Level 5 in Melbourne (Kelmann).
