Thousands of ADHSU members are furious after seeing their colleagues’ clinical ambitions shot down by the Service. NSW Ambulance – an organisation that receives billions of dollars in public funding – can’t manage to run fair and equitable recruitment for Intensive Care Paramedics (ICPs).

There are hundreds of P1 paramedics across the state eager to take on the challenge of upskilling to become ICPs, a long and difficult process. This process is normally a laborious application and interview process, followed by extensive training and ongoing mentoring, before finally qualifying as an ICP. This process often takes paramedics away from their families and support structures to take on this training.

Despite all of those hurdles, hundreds of paramedics applied for the most recent round of ICP recruitment, only to be shocked that before the interview process had even finished the class was full. This is not fair or reasonable and makes a total mockery of all the hard work of applicants who expected to be fairly evaluated against their peers.

Those paramedics who made it through to this ICP course should be commended on their hard work and deserve to be there. Those ADHSU members who – through no fault of their own – were prematurely rejected should make their thoughts known to the Service by writing a complaint, requesting a review of why their application was rejected, and cc’ing [E-Mail not displayed]. This rejection cannot be seen as a true reflection of their skills, given the mishandling of this entire process.

Here is a suggested jumping off point for a complaint letter, outlining how the Service has not followed their own policies around this recruitment.

The core group of ADHSU activists are calling for a public apology by the Chief Executive to all those who have been affected by this gross mishandling of the recruitment process.

The ICP selection process must cease immediately, and the Service be made to sit down with ADHSU delegates to sort this mess out. To that end, the Service should also expect additional actions from membership next week.