Violent incidents against South Australian ambulance officers have dropped in the past two months following a social media campaign.
The Keep Your Hands off our Ambos campaign, featuring intensive care paramedic Jordan Pring, was launched in May in response to rising rates of assault.
In the past two months the ambulance service has recorded 22 incidents, compared with 35 for June and July last year.
South Australia Ambulance Service acting chief executive Steve Cameron said while numbers of incidents had crept up over recent years, the latest figures were encouraging.
“The dramatic drop that we’ve seen in the results so far have been hugely positive but even one assault is one too many for our organisation and our staff to actually put up with,” he said.
“The most recent numbers suggest that the message might be getting through which is good news for our clinicians who provide vital treatment in the most extreme and uncertain of situations.
“We often have to deal with anxious, intoxicated or deliberately confrontational members of the public, who at times resort to unacceptable behaviour such as spitting, verbal abuse, threats and physical assault.”
Mr Pring said the campaign’s message was getting through to people.
“The statistics are really encouraging but we’d like to highlight that really the number of assaults and aggression reports that we have really needs to be zero and that’s really the only acceptable number,” he said.
“I think people are shocked [by the violence] and people have approached me and said they just can’t believe these things are happening so I guess that highlights the need for this campaign to put it out there and show people that this is happening and that we believe that this is unacceptable.”
Health Minister Jack Snelling said the initial figures were encouraging.
“What has surprised even me has been the success of this program with, over the last couple of months, a significant reduction in the number of violent attacks on our ambulance officers, it really does go to the power of social media,” he said.
“It is so important that ambos be allowed to get on with their job without having to be interrupted by people being violent and intimidating towards them, without having to put up with being assaulted, kicked, spat on — all of that sort of nonsense which we know goes on.
“I am cautiously optimistic that these early numbers reflect an increased respect for our ambulance officers and paramedics who carry out extremely important work.”
He said Keep Your Hands off our Ambos had been seen by 2.3 million people in 13 countries including the United States, Germany and Saudi Arabia.
“This campaign is part of our broader strategy that will also focus on reducing unacceptable behaviour toward healthcare workers in other high risk environments such as hospital emergency departments and drug and alcohol services,” Mr Snelling said.