Rural ambulance volunteers poorly equipped to deal with emergency births: study

A study has found rural and remote volunteer ambulance services are suffering from a lack of equipment and confidence to deal with emergency birth situations. Research by Edith Cowan University’s Michella Hill published in the Rural and Remote Health journal found volunteer ambulance officers across Australia were not properly equipped to deal with emergency births. The study spoke to 28 volunteers — 18 of which were in Western Australia — and concluded a lack of training and equipment along with logistical challenges were the main issues in delivering obstetrician services. Volunteer ambulance operators are not required to have a medical or paramedic degree. Instead they need to complete a training course allowing them to fill a crucial service otherwise left empty. ECU researcher Ms Hill said the volunteers were “absolute legends” but the relative lack of training meant confidence could be low. “Sometimes volunteers don’t want to attend a birth because ‘what happens if something goes wrong?’” she said. “They actually try to avoid going to one of those call outs and other times a volunteer said ‘I don’t want to be part of a broken process, I don’t want to be part of somebody’s memory’ where birthing is meant to be a happy occasion but something’s gone wrong. “There’s a lot of fear and anxiety around it.” Logistics and distance from a medical centre able to take on a birthing patient was found to be an issue. The South West has seen a number of maternity services close or be reduced in recent times, most notably the region’s last remaining private maternity service which shut at St John of God Hospital in late June. To improve volunteer confidence, Ms Hill is developing a virtual reality training, allowing those using the headset to see and hear what it is like with minimal space. It will allow the trainee to look at the first few minutes of a baby’s life and will point out what to look for to get the best outcome. “The virtual reality creates a sense of realism that simulation doesn’t, there’s pros and cons to both types of simulation, the in-person and the virtual reality,” Ms Hill said. “But the virtual reality means it can go out to all service centres throughout Australia that are willing to use it and it can sit on the shelf until someone’s got half an hour to spare. “They can put on the headset and remind themselves of what to do with a newborn.”