Paramedics urge the public to save Triple Zero (000) for saving lives and use alternative options for non-emergency situations.

Triple-0 calls for sniffles, sore throats, sports injuries and other everyday sicknesses are placing paramedics under extreme pressure and keeping cars off the road for hours almost every day.

With winter being the busiest time for paramedics, NSW Ambulance last month launched their winter campaign— ‘Is your urgency an emergency?’

The campaign aims to educate patients with non life-threatening or non-urgent conditions about the range of treatment options available to them without calling triple-0.

Only 10 per cent of triple-0 calls are for patients with life-threatening conditions and a further 40 per cent are for minor conditions.

Incredibly, Richmond Ambulance Station duty operations manager Peter Grant said their volume of jobs was up by 20 to 30 per cent in winter due to the common cold and related sicknesses.

‘‘Quite often most of these could be fixed with staying warm, a good rest and Panadol,’’ Mr Grant said.

‘‘People just need to stop and think, is it an emergency? Could I be treated in another way? Can I deal with it through other pathways?

“While we are dealing with these minor illnesses, someone else’s life is probably in danger.’’

Mr Grant has been with the NSW Ambulance for 22 years and told the Gazette about some recent call-outs in the Hawkesbury.

‘‘We had a man call up because he didn’t know how to read the instructions on his medication box. He wanted paramedics to tell him how to take them. In another instance, we had an elderly man call up because he was cold and needed someone to put his socks on for him in bed.

‘‘We have heard it all, even a couple calling because their fridge stopped working.’’

One of the stand-out jobs for him was when they were called to a bleeding finger from a knife cut followed directly by a job for an amputated arm caused by a chainsaw.

He said the first job came up as ‘severe external bleeding from a major abrasion’ and the chainsaw job as ‘a minor cut causing loss of blood’.

‘‘This all depends on the description given to the operators from the callers. It happens almost everyday where we are attending a minor job and we hear on the radio a person just had a cardiac arrest or a child was hit by a car just in the next suburb from us.

‘‘This is so frustrating but once you’re committed to a job, you’re committed, which makes it hard to leave.’’

Mr Grant said many people think they will be seen quicker if they arrive to hospital by ambulance but this is never the case.

‘‘There is a triage system and no matter what way you walk into the hospital, you will still be treated according to that.’’

Although paramedics across the state get many trivial calls, Mr Grant said the Hawkesbury wasn’t as bad as other areas.

Save Triple Zero (000) for saving lives and use alternative options for non-emergency situations.