Emergency services

The Advertiser: Emergency services reject criticism ]:

"NEW South Wales emergency services have defended their 'world-class' responses to routine incidents, despite a report raising doubts about their effectiveness."

I think we need to be very careful about criticising the people who put their lives at risk on our behalf. In recent years our emergency services have been running flat to the floor boards because, like the rest of the world ,things keep going wrong. Houses burn, people get lost, floods are constant, airplanes keep crashing, trains run amok, cars keep crashing, trucks crash and we have had untold bush fires. We have been in crisis. In the last 5 years Australia,and the world, has been in crisis management mode and no one else has been trained or mustered to help the services we have. Our Sydney bushfire fighters were fighting fires for months. Our chaos has been managed pretty well because we return to a stable condition relatively quickly and then brace ourselves for the next lot. The people out there in the thick of it have done a magnificent job trying to save our bacon. Yes, in a perfect world their response times and efficiency could be perfect. If they were not called on so often they could regroup, debrief and have a look at the game play. Don't criticise them. Not the people. Look at the services we have, how they are deployed, how often they are deployed and what else we need. Look at providing a more efficient system. When things go wrong we want it all fixed immediately. We do not like to be inconvenienced. So our patience is easily tried because we live in a whizzbang, push button instant gratification world. It doesn't happen like that in a crisis.We don't have a magic wand which fixes it all. It happens as fast as it can. To get it faster and more efficient, then the whole structure needs to be reviewed and, given the state of play , that is not a bad thing. In the meantime I think we've taken our emergency services too much for granted and owe them a big thank you for the way they've busted their guts on our behalf over the last few years.