The Malinauskas Labor Government today announces the location of its promised new Norwood Ambulance Station, the first of five additional ambulance stations to be built across Adelaide.
The new station will be built on repurposed government-owned land at the corner of Portrush and Magill Roads, made available following the recent intersection upgrade.
The site reveal comes as the first additional crews from the Labor Government’s commitment to 350 more ambos hit the road today.
A brand-new 24/7 16-paramedic crew dedicated to the Norwood area commences today, based out of Parkside Ambulance Station until their new station is built by mid-2024.
The Norwood crew is the first of eight 24/7 16-person metropolitan paramedic crews to be rolled out over the next four years.
In addition, a 12-person Emergency Support Services crew joins the 16 paramedics at Parkside to form a total of 28 extra ambos deployed to the eastern suburbs, filling a high-priority gap in ambulance coverage.
This has been made possible following the ‘super group’ of 32 paramedic graduate interns commencing on the road last week as part of a massive recruitment drive to deploy the committed 350 more ambos as quickly as possible, with 99 of those to start by mid-next year.
These interns are now evenly spread out across metropolitan Adelaide as they receive experienced support in their first few months on the road.
Norwood is one of five brand new stations, including a new city ambulance station, and is part of an overall $187.2 investment that also completely rebuilds four more stations and upgrades another 10 stations.
Quotes
Attributable to Peter Malinauskas
We are getting on with delivering our election commitments to help fix the ramping crisis.
These 28 high-calibre, highly trained individuals have offered to put themselves on the line to keep South Australians safe, and for that we offer our immense thanks.
We know these two new ambulance crews will make a real difference to response times for South Australians calling triple-zero in a crisis.
Attributable to Chris Picton
The crews being deployed today will make a huge difference in coverage not just across our inner-eastern suburbs, but across the state.
Paramedics identified a clear coverage gap in the inner suburbs, which pulls crews based further out in the suburbs away from their local areas to cover jobs closer to the city. That’s why we’re delivering the resources needed to meet this demand.
I want to thank all our paramedics and ambulance officers for the fantastic work they do to keep our community safe.
Attributable to Interim Exec. Director Metro Operations Paul Lemmer
This much-needed boost will help relieve pressure on our ambos who are currently working under trying conditions.
It’s been no mean feat bringing on board new crews so quickly but thanks to our support services teams we have been able to achieve this and started to deliver.
