000 isnt state or specific local area controlled?

[rijruna]

I had an instance this afternoon to call 000. It was part way through a question 'what state pls' that afterwards made me wonder this. How come 000 isnt a local area controlled entity? Or even given todays tech, direct contact with the closest service available at the shortest possible time? Voice recognition is quite good today & could be a good tool to use.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by rijruna

I had an instance this afternoon to call 000. It was part way through a question 'what state pls' that afterwards made me wonder this. How come 000 isnt a local area controlled entity? Or even given todays tech, direct contact with the closest service available at the shortest possible time? Voice recognition is quite good today & could be a good tool to use.

Well if you were close to a border the closest ambulance may be interstate.

As far as voice recognition software, when it is 100% with the voices of people who are in shock, having trouble breathing, terrified or any other condition I may consider it but we have enough problems with call centre idiots who have never been outside their own suburb trying to work out where you are let alone a bloody computer.

[michael_ozzie]

If we expect people in every town to wait for a 000 call, we pay alot of people to do not much but wait. Instead the capital cities all have call centres, and if any other call centre overflows, it can go to another state, so make sure you say which town and state, as it can be a costly mistake, which I am sure has been made before.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by michael_ozzie

If we expect people in every town to wait for a 000 call, we pay alot of people to do not much but wait. Instead the capital cities all have call centres, and if any other call centre overflows, it can go to another state, so make sure you say which town and state, as it can be a costly mistake, which I am sure has been made before.

Paying a lot of people to do not much......yeh it is called the "public service".

[michael_ozzie]

What I meant, is that some of the services used to take 000 calls for themselves, such as the CFA down here in VIC. But now it is all done centrally by people trained to dispatch Police, Fire or Ambulance anywhere in the country.

[CODSASR]

I wonder the same thing after a incident my mum and step dad had last year.

They had just finished building there '32 5 window coup a month later they had taken it out for a cruse and where driving past the YMCA in ballarat when the motor caught fire (dogy dizzy). My step dad pulled over and they jumped out whial he was trying to stop the fire my mum called 000 she got through the state and town and even the street but then the lady on the other end was asking what the closest intersection was.

In her panicked state she couldnt remember the names of the other streets around them after about 3 mins of the lady saying calm down and tell me the nearest intersection she finaly put my mum through to the ballarat CFA.

Now if this was a life or death situatation those 3 or more mins could have been fatal.

BTW the coupe is fine just blisterd the paint on the firewall and melted the leads and discolourd the chrome.

Most mobiles now have GPS built in I am sure they would be able to add softwear that can send the position when you call 000

[michael_ozzie]

in theory the gps is a good idea but it could be abused so many ways, i would prefer that they asked closest intersection. The person using the phone can always use the GPS in the phone to get these details anyway.

[F6T]

I remember the last time I had to call 000. My father had let me take his Range Rover Vogue SE out for the night when I was 19. I came back to collect the car, it was gone (it turned out that one of my brothers had played a prank on me and moved it to another area in the car park).

I was in such a panic that I called 000. The operator asked me 'what state are you in?' I replied incredulously that "I was in a perfectly sober state that you very much!!!"

No dear, what state in Australia?

[flappist]

Originally Posted by michael_ozzie

What I meant, is that some of the services used to take 000 calls for themselves, such as the CFA down here in VIC. But now it is all done centrally by people trained to dispatch Police, Fire or Ambulance anywhere in the country.

Yes and have had a recent experience with the morons who can't seem to understand that all of Australia is not in a capital city I have little faith.

Exact situation:

Motorcycle accident on Golden Fleece Rd, Golden Fleece QLD. After about 10 minutes fighting with the morons who first said there is no such place and then after being told where the nearest ambulance was stated that THEY decide where the nearest ambulance is and then given lat and lon state that that information is of no use and they require street corners or the nearest post office or street number an EPIRB was used to get the US Coast Guard to call maritime services in Canberra who dispatched the rescue heli to care the patient to intensive care where he remained for a week.

Just to show you how hard it is to find, type it into google, it comes straight up.

000 has been hijacked by a public vegetable stupidity who just want to make it cheaper not better, the same bloody mindedness that promotes speed cameras, alcopop tax, releasing mental patients and paedophiles into the community and reducing medical staffing instead of administrative staffing in the health system.

[MYVYSS]

State is only asked I thought when called from a Mobile, as they towers could be located in another state, and YES standing on the Great Ocean Road, you can in fact pick up Tasmanian towers.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by MYVYSS

State is only asked I thought when called from a Mobile, as they towers could be located in another state, and YES standing on the Great Ocean Road, you can in fact pick up Tasmanian towers.

I doubt that very much. GSM can only go 64km, WCDMA2100 (3G) much less than that and while WCDMA850 (NextG) is not range limited it would take extreme ducting for that distance to be covered and that part of the world is really too cold for inversion layers.

[michael_ozzie]

Originally Posted by flappist

Yes and have had a recent experience with the morons who can't seem to understand that all of Australia is not in a capital city I have little faith.

Exact situation:

Motorcycle accident on Golden Fleece Rd, Golden Fleece QLD. After about 10 minutes fighting with the morons who first said there is no such place and then after being told where the nearest ambulance was stated that THEY decide where the nearest ambulance is and then given lat and lon state that that information is of no use and they require street corners or the nearest post office or street number an EPIRB was used to get the US Coast Guard to call maritime services in Canberra who dispatched the rescue heli to care the patient to intensive care where he remained for a week.

Just to show you how hard it is to find, type it into google, it comes straight up.

000 has been hijacked by a public vegetable stupidity who just want to make it cheaper not better, the same bloody mindedness that promotes speed cameras, alcopop tax, releasing mental patients and paedophiles into the community and reducing medical staffing instead of administrative staffing in the health system.

I understand your situation, but I believe the problem lies more with the outdated databases that the 000 operators use, rather than their ability to input the data.

[flappist]

Originally Posted by michael_ozzie

I understand your situation, but I believe the problem lies more with the outdated databases that the 000 operators use, rather than their ability to input the data.

I would say more of their arrogant and bloody minded attitude.

We tried to tell them exactly were we were, how to get there and the closed ambulance station. The ambos at Biggenden know EXACTLY were it was as one of them regularly rides there as well and it is a feeder road to many properties.

They would not listen and just wanted to follow their "flow chart". It reminded me on Bigpond technical support. "No care, no responsibility and more afraid of of being yelled at by their manager for thinking outside the square than having a patient die while waiting.

Would you like a few more examples of 000 incompetence because I have lots of them.

[michael_ozzie]

No, i am not defending them, and yes you are right, it is their job to follow their flow chart.

If they follow the flow chart and get it wrong, then they have less accountability than going out of their way, getting it wrong, and being sued for everything from negligence to attempted murder.

Maybe the answer is GPS tracking of all mobile phones, I just believe that the tracking could too easily be abused.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by michael_ozzie

What I meant, is that some of the services used to take 000 calls for themselves, such as the CFA down here in VIC. But now it is all done centrally by people trained to dispatch Police, Fire or Ambulance anywhere in the country.

Incorrect.

When you call 000 for an ambulance the call initially goes to a central call centre where they establish the service required and call taking catchment area. That call is then transferred to the appropriate call taker.

For example, if you are in QLD, lets say Mt Cotton (Brisbane area), your call will be transferred to the call taker at AFCOM (Ambulance and Fire Communications Centre) which is located at Spring Hill in the city. If you are located at Coral Gardens (Gold Coast), your call will be transferred to SECOM (South East Communications centre). The actual details of the call are not handled at a national level, they are handled at a regional level.

We tried to tell them exactly were we were, how to get there and the closed ambulance station. The ambos at Biggenden know EXACTLY were it was as one of them regularly rides there as well and it is a feeder road to many properties.

Sorry Flappist but they will never take advice on where the nearest station is for a number of reasons but primarily this is because it delays dispatch. For a start, did you know if that ambulance unit was in station or 300 km away? We have had similar incidences in Brisbane where a caller argued with the call taker demanding that an ambulance from a hospital that was nearby be sent. It took considerable time for the call taker to get the required information due to this argument which delayed the dispatch of the ambulance. What the caller did not know is ambulances in QLD do not operate out of hospitals, they operate out of stations and at that time there were no available ambulances at that hospital.

The best thing to do is follow the bouncing ball and answer questions, it works in the vast majority of situations.

Flappist I will concede that it does not work in all occasions such as the one you mention but perhaps that was a result of other factors, who knows. Perhaps it was a mapping system problem. For example there is a suburb in Brisbane called Ellen Grove, we get cases there for xyz street, ellen grove. The problem is our GPS units do not list any of the streets in Ellen Grove, they list them in Forest Lake. If we input xyz street forest lake, we get taken to the correct street in ellen grove. There are many examples of this throughout Brisbane alone, I can not imagine the whole state. Any communications officer is only as good as the tools they have available.

Personally, dealing with them every day, I have great respect for those "public service vegetables", in the vast majority of cases the information they give us is spot on. After sitting up in the communications centre listening in on calls a number of times, I am always amazed at the way they can calm down frantic callers and get the required information at the speed in which they do. Please find me an automatic voice prompt system that can do that as well as give first aid advice. The stress these people (and they are just people) are under is evidenced by the fact that they actually have a higher burn out rate than on road paramedics.

In the case that you mention, I was not there so I don't know all the details but then again you are not likely to either. Perhaps the closest ambulance was not in the area. Perhaps the helicopter was sent as it was the fastest response unit available. QLD is a big state and we can not be everywhere at once. Just consider QLD as lucky, at least most areas have a ambulance station staffed by full time Advanced Care Paramedics or Intensive Care Paramedics within a reasonable distance, WA only has volunteer ambulance staff in most country towns except major towns such as Bunbury, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie etc. QLD country coverage is far superior to some other states.

By the way, if you gave me a lat and long reference to me in my vehicles at work it would be of no use as I have no navigation device that can direct me to such a reference. I can bring up my current lat and long location on my MDT (mobile data terminal) but that is so I can call a chopper in if I need it. Perhaps if this lack of navigation aids that can use lat and long is such an issue in your community, then the community could get together and fundraise in conjunction with your local ambulance committee and have these units fitted to ambulances in that area. That is how we first got our GPS units, now the service provides them (but these are designed for urban use and do not use lat and long references).

[JC]

Originally Posted by flappist

Paying a lot of people to do not much......yeh it is called the "public service".

This should be "Paying a lot of people not much to do a lot....yeh it is called the "public service".

[Redrum]

When you call 000 you in the first instance get Telstra, they would ask the question, which state, then police/fire or ambulance etc, so they can direct your call correctly.

[Jim Goose]

Gecko , I was under the impression that when calling on a mobile phone it doesnt get handled locally, as it doesnt know your location..
When calling via land line it knows where you are and the call is directed to the nearest center?

[geckoGT]

No call goes direct to the state and service you require, as Redrum said it goes to a central call centre (Telstra) and then it gets transferred.

On land line phones the address is available to the call taker at the ambulance communications centre but they still confirm the address that you require the ambulance as the information can be wrong (rare) but also the caller may not be at the scene of the person who requires and ambulance (what is known as a third party caller and happens frequently). Imagine a lady calls for an ambulance because she was talking to her mum on the phone and noticed that she has slurred speech and seems confused which is very different for her, she calls an ambulance for her mum even though they might live on the other side of town. We do 1 or 2 third party call outs a shift, mostly from mobiles (people driving past crashes etc) but often from land line calls.

[CODSASR]

Glad to hear atleat one state has given emergency services gps devices.

Here in vic there was an uproar because the ambo's have to pull over to check there melways and public wasnt happy. Suprise suprise I heard on the radio yesterday the government said they WONT provide GPS devices as its "not there problem"

[geckoGT]

Ours are just portable units mounted in the vehicles at this stage, they are Garmin Nuvi.

These are just an interim until the new data terminals are developed and released. In the future the plan is the data terminals will be linked to the toughbook computers that we use which will be loaded with navigation software. Once a case is dispatched to a vehicle the information of the case will be downloaded onto the toughbook and the navigation information will automatically entered. That way we do not have to do anything to prepare to respond, just turn the lights an and go.

I hope this is not a pipe dream and does occur. That way we can divert our attention to other important things like considering the case, preparing drug calculations, considering any backup that we may require as well as have two sets of eyes scanning for hazards whilst driving.

Such a system would cut 1-2 minutes off our response time without too much trouble which in some cases would have great benefit in the outcome for the patient.

Lets hope it happens.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by CODSASR

Glad to hear atleat one state has given emergency services gps devices.

Here in vic there was an uproar because the ambo's have to pull over to check there melways and public wasnt happy. Suprise suprise I heard on the radio yesterday the government said they WONT provide GPS devices as its "not there problem"

We went through that too. It was eventually decided to supply them when most paramedics were using their own personal units. They tried to tell us we were not allowed to mount them in the vehicles on the windscreen as they were a crash hazard but we all just ignored that direction. In our view the sat nav unit attached to the windscreen is a lot less of a hazard than our PPE kits on the floor between the front seats with not means to secure them. Now they have supplied them and guess what, they are attached to the windscreen.

I think the reasoning was they could then ensure that all units were the same and all staff knew how to use them which would give a system to reduce navigation errors. That also gave them the ability to coordinate map updates and ensure units are up to date. These systems are not possible when staff are using their own units.

[CODSASR]

I would say its alot better then having to pull over or the passanger having there eyes on a map and alot quicker

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by CODSASR

I would say its alot better then having to pull over or the passanger having there eyes on a map and alot quicker

Its hard to tell the exact reason as we have had some increases in staffing and operational vehicles in the last few years as well as the introduction of satellite navigation but there has been a considerable improvement in response times recently. I strongly believe the satellite navigation has been a factor as it is quicker to punch in the information than it is to look up the book, particularly when it is a long distance to the case and covers multiple pages (many do).

[flappist]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

Its hard to tell the exact reason as we have had some increases in staffing and operational vehicles in the last few years as well as the introduction of satellite navigation but there has been a considerable improvement in response times recently. I strongly believe the satellite navigation has been a factor as it is quicker to punch in the information than it is to look up the book, particularly when it is a long distance to the case and covers multiple pages (many do).

Because they have not worked out how to raise revenue from GPS yet.
Once they do you will have 10 of them in every vehicle.......

[seedywagon]

This is quite interesting actually,
A year ago, I was driving along the Newell highway back to Melbourne from Toowoomba, I was about half-way between Coonabarabran and Gilgandra, and I see, in the distance, a burning car. It was literally in the middle of nowhere, hours from the nearest town. I slowed down (with the doors locked) to make sure nobody was injured, but nobody was around, and I hadn't passed a car in about an hour!
Anyway, I thought it was suspicious, so I called 000 whilst continuing my trip, they linked me straight to a NSW regional emergency dispatch centre, I didn't even know how coonabarabran was pronounced, but the lady on the other end new exactly where it was (I had no clue myself!) .. Sure enough, late at night about 1 hour later, I see 2 firetrucks absolutely FLYING in the opposite direction HAHA...
I love central NSW, amazing place.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by flappist

Because they have not worked out how to raise revenue from GPS yet.
Once they do you will have 10 of them in every vehicle.......

Thanks for that, everything is a government conspiracy

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by seedywagon

This is quite interesting actually,
A year ago, I was driving along the Newell highway back to Melbourne from Toowoomba, I was about half-way between Coonabarabran and Gilgandra, and I see, in the distance, a burning car. It was literally in the middle of nowhere, hours from the nearest town. I slowed down (with the doors locked) to make sure nobody was injured, but nobody was around, and I hadn't passed a car in about an hour!
Anyway, I thought it was suspicious, so I called 000 whilst continuing my trip, they linked me straight to a NSW regional emergency dispatch centre, I didn't even know how coonabarabran was pronounced, but the lady on the other end new exactly where it was (I had no clue myself!) .. Sure enough, late at night about 1 hour later, I see 2 firetrucks absolutely FLYING in the opposite direction HAHA...
I love central NSW, amazing place.

You must have got a good public service vegetable.

[svo supporter]

On the subject of GPS systems (A little off topic I know), how do you go Gecko GT with them. I have one in a service van, as well as a personal one and both of them don't take me the most direct route, even though it's punched in?

Do you have the same issues, where it is beneficial to have knowledge of the area, so you can take a shorter route than what the GPS system puts up?

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by svo supporter

On the subject of GPS systems (A little off topic I know), how do you go Gecko GT with them. I have one in a service van, as well as a personal one and both of them don't take me the most direct route, even though it's punched in?

Do you have the same issues, where it is beneficial to have knowledge of the area, so you can take a shorter route than what the GPS system puts up?

Most of us find we don't really have this problem with them. Mainly because of the way they are set up which is in fastest time not shortest route planning mode and also in emergency mode. Fastest time is not alway the shortest route but it is pretty good because it tends to stick to the larger roads with less intersections and higher posted speed limits. We have shown on a number of occasions that this setting is much quicker in travel time.

The emergency setting allows route planning that involved u turns and turns against turn restriction signs as we can do this when under lights and siren.

The other thing that we find is that we all have outstanding knowledge of the roads in the area in which we work. For example, Tori has said before that she does not need navigation units when I am in the car because she has "paramedic nav". When you consider that I came to Brisbane when I started with QAS (only 6 and a bit years ago), the fact is that I know all the major roads on the south side of Brisbane, plus most of the central area and a lot of the northern areas of Brisbane. I have seen on multiple occasions when new students start that my knowledge of the roads easily exceeds theirs and most of them have lived in Brisbane most of their lives. My point there is that in this job you learn your way around very quickly. This knowledge of the main roads and the way to get to the general area of a call out means that we do not need the GPS to get us to the approximate vicinity, we just use it to navigate the small streets. Of course when we are responding to cases in our own area, which for me is the Inala, Forest Lake and Acacia Ridge areas, we often do not need any form of nav unit or map as we know the area so well and even where a lot of the back streets are. The problem there is we do find ourselves way outside of our areas on every shift, so we can not rely on local knowledge to that extent.

I think the big question here is do you have shortest distance or fastest time set as the planning parameter? They are totally different, I find on my own personal GPS that shortest distance often takes weird little back streets which may in fact be shorter but takes longer. On shortest time it tends to take larger roads with higher speed limits even though it may be longer.