Archive for January, 2009

In Ambulance Service of NSW v Worley; further legal lessons for the emergency services’ (2007) 5 e Journal of Emergency Primary Health Care Article number 990235 I wrote an article about a case involving the Ambulance Service of NSW.

At the time I was invited to give a seminar on legal issues affecting ambulance services and I now attach a copy of that paper. The paper deals with a number of issues and cases including a prosecution of the NSW Fire Brigades by the WorkCover Authority for breaching NSW Occupational and Health and Safety Laws, and two cases involving ambulance services, one against the Metropolitan Ambulance Service in Victoria and the other against the Ambulance Service of NSW.

There has been an appeal to the Court of Appeal in the NSW case and I also attach a paper that is a discussion on that decision.

Legal Issues for Ambulance Services;

Neal v Ambulance Service of NSW

I trust both these are of interest.

Michael Eburn
29 January 2009.

This blog is maintained by Michael Eburn, Senior Lecturer in law at the University of New England, Armidale NSW, to discuss legal issues affecting the emergency services (that is fire, ambulance and rescue services) in Australia.

Why Michael Eburn? I am an academic researcher looking at legal issues affecting and applying to the emergency services. I am the author of Emergency Law (2nd ed 2005, The Federation Press) the only book (or at least the only one that I know of) on the subject of Emergency law in Australia. I am currently writing the 3rd ed so I would value any feedback people have on the 2nd ed. If there is a subject that you want to see discussed or some part of the discussion of it isn’t clear, let me know and I’ll see what I can do in the next edition.

Apart from that book I have written numerous articles and given conference papers and inservice training on legal issues affecting the emergency services. You can see my CV here.

Here I will put up my thoughts and reflections on developing issues, in particular developments in the law that I think may impact upon the law that applies to the emergency services. I also want to hear from the members of the emergency services, paid and volunteer. If there is an issue that you think needs discussion post it here and we’ll see what comes out of it.

Having said that I have to add the usual lawyers disclaimers. This is not a place for providing specific legal advice, so I wont be able to answer questions that are based on actual events, such as ‘we responded to a job and now someone wants to sue me, what should I do’. For those jobs you (or more importantly, the service of which you are a member) needs to get legal advice from a practising lawyer. I also wont comment on questions about service decisions, so questions like ‘My service has just issued a directive/policy/item of PPE and I think it is illegal, what do you think?’ wont be answered. Finally I wont get into inter-personal issues ‘A fellow member said this, is it defamatory or can we kick them out of the service?’. Having said that I want to hear as many things as possible because if I know the issues that are affecting the members I can do more productive and useful work in trying to find answers. If your concern clearly falls in the above categories then understand I may not be able to give an answer, but remember there is no harm in asking and if I think I shouldn’t answer a question or comment on an issue, I’ll say that.

I hope this site proves useful and interesting for all and I look forward to our discussions.

Michael Eburn
29 January 2009