St John WA, a crucial provider of ambulance services in Western Australia, has announced the reduction of 90 staff members due to ongoing economic pressures. Retired military leader Kevin Brown took on the chief executive in 2023. In a memo sent to staff on Thursday announcing his decision, he communicated to the staff that. Even with these layoffs, the organization pledged that no paramedic jobs would be lost, underlining the fact that services on the frontlines are still in place.
St John WA is a large metropolitan operation, with more than 2800 employees on its staff. In total, more than 6,000 highly trained volunteers and almost 48,000 volunteer community responders provide essential backup to the professionals. These staff cuts would be enough to shave that paid team down by 2 percent. Brown termed this move a “targeted reset,” which he said is a longer-term play to make sure their services are sustainable.
Response to Economic Pressures
In his memo, board member Kevin Brown noted the dire economy that forced these difficult choices.
“Like many organisations, we are operating in a more constrained economic environment and have had to make some tough choices to ensure the sustainability of our services into the future.” – Kevin Brown
He understood that all these changes would threaten to break the support and enabling teams in his organization. He did double down on his promise to provide safe, high quality, frontline services.
A St John WA spokesperson echoed this sentiment, stating, “Our focus remains on delivering safe, high-quality frontline services and maintaining the systems and infrastructure that support them.” The organizing is, in turn, allowing the organization to provide redeployment opportunities for affected staff as much as possible.
Political Reactions and Concerns
Opposition health spokesperson Libby Mettam said the announcement was bizarre. Under a partial government shutdown, she wrote, the Dear Colleague would severely undermine our health system and impede timely medical care. She raised alarm bells over any lack of transparency, particularly about how any cuts would affect patient care.
“The minister for health needs to tell us when she was briefed about these job cuts and if she was, what steps did she take to ensure there would be no impacts on patients in the health system.” – Libby Mettam
Mettam called attention to Western Australia experiencing one of their worst flu seasons on record. This double whammy doubles down on the bad news for the bustling region. Secretary Becerra emphasized the need for strong health services now more than ever at this pivotal moment.
“In increasing our ambulance services are being compromised by bed block in our emergency care systems in our hospitals. We cannot afford to see further cuts impacting our health system.” – Libby Mettam
Labor Minister Simone McGurk responded to these concerns, assuring the public that St John WA’s cuts would not affect frontline ambulance services.
“We are assured by St John that these cuts will not affect frontline services, that is paramedic and ambulance services, and we need to take them at their word.” – Simone McGurk
Future Outlook for St John WA
As St John WA continues to sail through these choppy economic seas, it’s still deeply devoted to the collaborative arrangement with the state government. We at St John appreciated McGurk’s recognition of us as an important partner in delivering high-quality services to our community.
“Any organisation, particularly a health provider, has an obligation to organise themselves as efficiently and effectively as possible.” – Simone McGurk
The new leadership of the organization is now determined to keep service quality high even as they make required improvements.
“This change represents a potential reduction of 2 percent of our paid team,” Brown noted, highlighting the difficult nature of these decisions while assuring that efforts would be made to minimize disruption.
