NEWS-HR

The paramedics union has condemned the actions of dozens of men who allegedly attacked paramedics who were trying to save a man in Sydney who did not survive. Paramedics were called to a unit block on Iris Avenue, Riverwood, in Sydney’s west, about 8am on Sunday for a 25-year-old man suffering a suspected drug overdose. Family members of the dying man became irate and tried to intervene, the Australian Paramedics Association said in a statement. Up to 80 angry men quickly gathered at the unit and allegedly threatened the health workers and charged at a female paramedic, injuring her shoulder. ‘Paramedics were forced to fend off angry males who eventually forced them to stop treating the patient who was in cardiac arrest and subsequently died,’ APA secretary Steve Pearce said. The paramedics barricaded themselves inside the unit as the violent mob demanded a defibrillator and drugs, believing they could treat the young man themselves, Mr Pearce added. About 20 police including officers from the Police Rescue squad arrived at the scene to save the five paramedics. But the patient had died.

The Health Services Union (015V) and Mercy Hospitals Victoria Ltd T/A Mercy Health have a s.739 matter before Commissioner Cribb in Conference Room E – in Melbourne at 11.30am.

The Trustee for Innisfail Health Centre Trust T/A Innisfail Family Health will face a s.372 (Application to deal with general protections not involving dismissal) in front of Fair Work Commissioner Simpson in Hearing Room 2 Fair Work Commission Central Plaza Two Level 14 66 Eagle Street Brisbane at 2pm (Fairfull).

St Mina Medical Centre will defend a s.739 (Application to deal with a dispute) before Commissioner Cribb in Conference Room E – Level 6 11 Exhibition St Melbourne 3000 at 3pm (Scannell).

St John ambulance has apologised to a female patient and disciplined a paramedic who told her she had a throat infection and hadn’t drunk enough water when she actually had pneumonia. An internal investigation also found the staff member had made inappropriate comments about the woman’s anxious mother, which the ambulance service has labelled “extremely unprofessional, offensive and unwarranted”. Two St John paramedics were called to the woman’s East Auckland home in July 2017 after her mother called 111, saying her daughter was struggling to breathe. The woman said the male paramedic told her she had “brought this on herself for not drinking enough water”, after saying she didn’t like water much. “I was very upset, I was made to feel as though I was wasting his time and that neither me or my symptoms mattered. I was apparently just being dramatic,” the woman said. Her mother said the male paramedic diagnosed her daughter with a throat infection and made the comment that “there were already 600 patients at Middlemore ED just like her”. The mother said she was shocked as she was genuinely fearing for her daughter’s life at the time. “I could see she was terrified and he … wouldn’t help her,” the mother said. “My daughter then told me that while in the back of the ambulance [the male paramedic] said to his partner they should have been treating the mother and pointed to his head and alluded that I was unhinged.” The woman was diagnosed with pneumonia once she got to hospital and remained unwell for several months. Her mother laid a complaint with St John.

A man convicted of murdering two nursing home residents is appealing his lengthy jail term on the basis there was no motive, and claims the killer may have been a woman. Garry Steven Davis was sentenced in December 2016 to 40 years in jail for murdering two residents and attempting to murder a third in 2013 at Wallsend’s SummitCare nursing home. Residents Gwen Fowler, 83, and Ryan Kelly, 80, died as a result of insulin injections. Audrey Manuel, 91, recovered but had since died from unrelated causes. Davis was found guilty of all three offences in a judge-only trial presided over by Supreme Court Justice Robert Hulme. Justice Hulme said Davis had acted with extreme callousness, and it was as if he thought the residents’ lives were worthless. During the trial, the defence agreed with the Crown that none of the victims were insulin-dependent, but in his submission to the Court of Criminal Appeal, solicitor Mark Ramsland said there was no proof it had been Davis who gave the victims the insulin. It was the prosecution’s circumstantial case that Mr Davis was the only person who could have injected all three residents. But the defence submission said not enough weight had been given to evidence by police that 19 other staff members and five other people were potential suspects. They were all in the home at the relevant time, but the Crown successfully argued they could be ruled out. “It is submitted that there was a possibility reasonably open on the facts that these offences had been committed by two or more people, where in pursuit of a joint criminal enterprise or otherwise,” Mr Ramsland said.

A woman will face court charged with allegedly abusing an elderly dementia sufferer in her care. Police were called to a unit in Station St, Thirroul, north of Wollongong, on Friday night and allegedly heard the sounds of “moaning, shouting and approximately 11 slapping noises”. The officers went to the rear of the property where they allegedly saw Alicia Gawronski, 28, walking the 81-year-old victim from the bathroom through the kitchen and then to the loungeroom. Police will allege they then saw the older woman fall over before Gawronski “punched her with a closed fist to the inner thigh of her left leg”. The officers then allegedly saw Gawronski lift the older woman by both legs, causing her to fall. Gawronski, who was recently appointed the older woman’s carer and legal guardian, was then arrested. while the older woman was taken to Wollongong Hospital where she was treated.

Fleetwood Corporation has accounced Elizabeth Maynard will be appointed as General Counsel and Company Secretary effective from 3 September 2018. Andrew Wackett, who is Fleetwood’s Chief Financial Officer and was appointed interim Company Secretary on 5 July 2018, will continue to serve the Company as joint Company Secretary.