Throughout the pandemic, they’ve been under pressure like never before – with record demand for ambulance callouts and emergency care happening when there were often staff shortages due to illness.
The Victorian Government has already boosted the workforce by around 2,000 paramedics since coming to government, including an intake of more than 700 paramedics in 2021‑22.
We're recruiting more Triple Zero call takers, delivering new ambulances and equipment, and building and upgrading stations across our state.
But when it comes to those minutes and seconds that save lives – there’s always more to do.
In this Budget, we’ll keep investing to make sure paramedics have the facilities and support they need to quickly respond to local emergencies and save lives, including:
- A $201 million system wide boost to support timely emergency care, including more ambulance services and improvements to emergency department programs, to get patients the care they need as quickly as possible.
- $46 million to train the next generation of paramedics – deploying specialist paramedic practitioners to provide urgent treatment faster, training an additional 40 Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance paramedics and establishing a Centre for Paramedicine in partnership with Victoria University.
- $30 million for a new ambulance station in Armstrong Creek, including land acquisition, to service the growing local community by improving ambulance response times and better support paramedics in the City of Greater Geelong and surrounding regions.
Reviewed 18 May 2023