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** Australian woman sentenced to year in clink for attacking and threatening paramedic

** Australian EMS services in Victoria to suffer if plan implemented to move city medics into rural areas for weeks at a time?

** A New South Wales woman has been jailed for one year after being convicted of assaulting an ambulance officer. The Illawarra Mercury (Breanna Chillingworth/July 17) said Tamworth resident Stephanie Morgan, 36, was given the sentence earlier this week for intimidation and common assault of a paramedic. According to the newspaper, Morgan was drunk July 8th when she pushed the paramedic and threatened to kill him while the EMS unit was en route to hospital. EMS had originally been hailed to her home to treat a cut finger. Becoming aggressive shortly after entering the ambulance, she threatened the attending medic with head butting and said she would toss him out the window. Refusing to leave the vehicle upon the practitioner’s request, she was eventually removed by security. She will be eligible for early release in January.

** Ambulance Victoria could soon see mass resignations, if a plan to rotate medics around the state for up to a month at a time is implemented. That is the word from The Age (Richard Willingham/July 17th) which said the idea is aimed at offering rural areas better EMS cover. According to the proposal, city practitioners could be sent away from their home bases for days or weeks at a time to fill in coverage gaps. Australian Ambulance Employees Association secretary Steve McGhie said his members are vehemently opposed to the toll the concept would take on their home lives. McGhie said many would just quit rather than allow the disruption. Health Minister David Davis dismissed the claim, calling it rubbish. Davis also derided union assertions that paramedics are already leaving the service because of poor working conditions.