DO YOU HAVE INSURANCE?

Immediate Assistants Events has Professional Indemnity ($30 million) and Workers Compensation Insurance for all staff.

DOES MY ORGANISATION REALLY NEED TO HAVE ALL THIS?

Yes!!

NSW legislation includes responsibility for organisations engaging private paramedics such as Immediate Assistants Events.

36D Offences by bodies corporate under the NSW Poisons Amendment (Therapeutic Goods) Act 1996 No 2

(1) If a body corporate contravenes, whether by act or omission, any provision of this Act or the regulations, each person who is a director, or a person concerned in the management, of the body is taken to have contravened the same provision if the person knowingly authorised or permitted the contravention.

(2) A person may be proceeded against and convicted under a provision under this section whether or not the body corporate has been proceeded against or convicted.

 (3) This section does not affect any liability imposed on a body corporate for an offence committed by the body against this Act or the regulations.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A LEGAL CASE AGAINST YOUR COMPANY?

Never! Not in over 25 years.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD AN INSURANCE CLAIM AGAINST YOUR COMPANY?

Never! Not in over 25 years.

WHAT ABOUT EMTS, OR RMTS?

EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) and RMTs (Remote Medical Technicians) are American terms for first-aiders who have undertaken further training. They are not paramedics, and cannot legally given drugs or perform many life-saving procedures.

Several private paramedic companies run their own course, graduate their own EMTs or RMTS and then place them as “medics” or (worse yet) call them Paramedics.

Immediate Assistant Events does not use EMTs or RMTs.

WHAT ABOUT INTERSTATE PARAMEDIC COMPANIES?

Interstate private paramedic companies operate to different standard than NSW ones.

They cannot provide Intensive Care Paramedic drugs or procedures

(a) Paramedics cannot operate legally unless employed by or contracted to a Paramedic Company.
(b) Paramedic Students cannot operate legally as Paramedics. They are First Aiders (if certified).
(c) There is no such thing as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) qualification recognised by Australian Tertiary Institutions. It is a term imported from the USA to cover first aiders and those without paramedic qualifications.
(d) Paramedic Companies from Victoria cannot operate legally without NSW Health licences.
(e) For a Paramedic to legally work “under a doctor’s direction”, the doctor must by physically present.
(f)  Paramedics from the ACT cannot legally operate to the same protocols and procedures in NSW as they can in the ACT.
(g) In Victoria, Paramedics from Private Paramedic Companies can legally utilise only these 5 medications:

  1. Aspirin
  2. GTN (sublingual)
  3. Glucose Paste
  4. Glucagon
  5. Methoxyflurane
WHAT ABOUT ST. JOHNS? THEY’RE A CHARITY, AREN’T THEY?

Yes they are…when they are providing first aid classes. However, when they are providing a service you request, this constitutes a Commercial Contract. Any money they request, or you pay them, is a fee for service, NOT a donation. No charity can “request a donation” in return for services.

Any expenses occurred hiring a private paramedic company such as Immediate Assistants Events are 100% tax deductible as a business expense, exactly the same as a real charity donation.

Despite having “lots of doctors, nurses and “real” ambulance officers volunteering to provide services, the reality is also that St Johns cannot guarantee Intensive Care Paramedics and routinely use (many) junior volunteer “cadets” under the “supervision” of a more senior volunteer or supervisor.

WHAT ABOUT UNI STUDENTS, OR STUDENT PARAMEDICS?

Paramedic Students cannot operate legally as Paramedics. They are First Aiders (if certified at that level).

There are now 19 University courses in Para-medicine in Australia, most courses are 3 years in length. They do not allow full-time placement with state ambulance services and “real world” experience (as opposed to classroom” is scarce until after graduation and (hopefully) employment with a state ambulance services.

WHAT CAN YOUR PARAMEDICS DO?

The Intensive Care (ICP) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) paramedics provided by Immediate Assistants Events offers a far higher degree of medical skill than volunteer first-aiders or “medics”, encompassing:

  1. Cardiac Arrest and Trauma Protocols
  2. Automatic and Manual Cardiac Defibrillation
  3. Sophisticated Non-Invasive Electronic Monitoring
  4. Venous Cannulation, Chest Needle Decompression
  5. IV Therapy
  6. Prescription Pharmaceuticals
  7. Oxygen Administration
  8. Narcotic Analgesia (Morphine, Ketamine)
  9. Necksafe® Spinal Techniques

Immediate Assistants Events is licensed by NSW Health to provide its paramedics with the following 22 drugs, and its paramedics are authorised to use them according to our Clinical Governance framework and its Pharmacology, Medical and Treatment Protocols. These are authorised annually by our Medical Director, a Senior Fellow of the Australian College of Emergency Medicine.

  1. Adenosine
  2. Adrenaline
  3. Amiodarone
  4. Atropine
  5. Benztropine
  6. Frusemide
  7. Glucagon
  8. Glyceryl trinitrate
  9. Hydrocortisone
  10. Ipratropium bromide
  11. Lignocaine
  12. Methoxyflurane
  13. Metoclopramide
  14. Midazolam
  15. Naloxone
  16. Nitrous oxide
  17. Ondansetron
  18. Promethazine
  19. Salbutamol
  20. Tramadol

RESTRICTED MEDICATIONS which may be supplied only to medical practitioners and paramedics in the employ of Immediate Assistants Events authorised to possess them under the Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act 1966.

  1. Morphine injection (10 mg per ml)
  2. Ketamine injection (100 mg per ml)

We provide Intensive Care (ICP) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) Paramedic’s, not first aiders, not EMTs (there is no such category in Australia) and certainly not students (when you are paying for professionals).

WHAT EVENT DON’T YOU PROVIDE SERVICES FOR AND WHY?

Immediate Assistants Events avoids poorly specified events which potentially compromise patient care.
We don’t provide services for concert events outside recognised venues, and only with clearly defined Risk Management parameters. Dance parties, “raves”, warehouse and other events where access to patrons is limited and conditions less than optimal are welcome to try our competitors.

WHAT EXACTLY IS A PARAMEDIC, AND HOW DO THEY DIFFER FROM “MEDICS” AND FIRST AIDERS?

Paramedics in Australia are not permitted to practice independently or to carry or use prescribed medications. They must be employed by and working for a state ambulance service or a private paramedic organisation in order to provide clinical advice, treatment, medication or therapeutic intervention to any person.

In order to operate in NSW, private paramedic organisations must have approvals and licences issued by NSW Health under the Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act 1996 and Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Regulations 2008.

These elements are under the supervision of the NSW Health Department and its Private Health Care Unit, Legal and Regulatory Services Branch.

To company with the Act, Immediate Assistants Events has the following (current):

  1. Licence to supply by wholesale poisons and/or restricted substance for therapeutic use
  2. Licence to supply by wholesale drugs of addiction
  3. Authority for Employees of the Company to Administer Scheduled Medicines
  4. Statutory Deceleration by each Director and Office Holder of the company
  5. Fitness and Probity Check of each Director and Office Holder of the company
  6. National Criminal Record Check (NCRC) in the form of a National Police Certificate (NPC) of each Director and Office Holder of the company
WHAT IS CLINICAL GOVERNANCE?

Clinical Governance is a systematic approach to maintaining and improving the quality of patient care.

It addresses those structures, systems and processes that assure the quality, accountability and proper management of an organisation’s medical operation and delivery of service.

Critical Clinical Governance elements of Immediate Assistants Events include:

  1. Medical Director  with Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Emergency Medicine (FACEM)
  2. Medical Advisory Committee
  3. Paramedic Protocols and Procedures approved by Medical Director and Advisory Committee
  4. Paramedic  staff certification system
  5. Continuing education programme for Paramedic staff
  6. Licence/Authority for each Paramedic staffmember issued by NSW Health
  7. Professional Indemnity and Workers Compensation Insurance for Paramedic staff
WHY DO I NEED AN AMBULANCE FOR MY EVENT?

Immediate Assistants Events has 4WD ambulances available to service events which offer a private treatment facility at the site of productions and when they go “off the beaten track”.

This fully equipped vehicle also provides transport back to a central medical clinic or office where treatment can continue or rendezvous with local ambulance can be arranged.

It is not legal for a private paramedic service to transport patients to healthcare facilities, but in exigent emergency circumstance, we will either transport directly to the closest hospital or rendezvous with inbound NSW ambulance or helicopter.

WHY DO I NEED AN MEDICAL CLINIC FOR MY EVENT?

Immediate Assistants Events provides discreet, private treatment facilities for clients away from the gaze of spectators, crew and other parties. These can also allow for complex procedures and the administration of IV fluids and drugs away from public view, and ideally have air-conditioning, running water and internal toilet facilities for patient convenience and hygiene.

WHY NOT JUST HIRE THE NSW AMBULANCE TO PROVIDE SERVICES?

The NSW Ambulance Service is a government service for urgent and non-urgent response to the people of NSW.

This 100% public function has not stopped them developing a fee-for-service model which is now actually more expensive than private paramedic companies.

Also, because the ambulance service’s primary role is response to 000 calls, they cannot guarantee an Intensive Care Paramedic even when contracted to do so, unlike Immediate Assistants Events.

“Our core business is the delivery of emergency out-of-hospital health care and transport services.” http://www.ambulance.nsw.gov.au/Community-Info.html

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