Ambulance Victoria Facing Major Shortages of Intensive Care Paramedics in Geelong, Raising Safety Concerns
Leaked internal communications reveal that Ambulance Victoria is struggling to staff shifts for its highly-trained Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance (MICA) paramedics in the Geelong region — a shortfall that local paramedics warn is endangering lives.
One anonymous Geelong-based MICA paramedic disclosed that the service regularly fails to staff MICA units, sometimes leaving just a single unit to cover a vast area from Werribee to Warrnambool. They reported at least eight occasions in May where shifts were dropped due to a lack of available staff.
“It’s becoming routine,” the paramedic said. “Having no intensive care paramedic — or just one for such a large region — is genuinely frightening.”
Staffing issues have become so severe that Ambulance Victoria has implemented a documented process to operate Norlane’s 24-hour MICA unit using less-qualified paramedics.
Urgent Shift Requests Becoming the Norm
Text messages viewed by the ABC show Ambulance Victoria issued 46 urgent shift-fill requests over a 57-day period from late April to mid-June. These last-minute calls for help, often sent just hours before shifts start, indicate the lack of a reliable backup staffing plan.
“The texts come as a last resort,” the paramedic said. “You’re being asked to come in with barely an hour’s notice — understandably, not many are willing or able to do that.”
According to the paramedic, contributing factors to the staffing crisis include workforce shortages, long shifts, staff burnout, expanding service areas, hospital delays, and the regular deployment of intensive care paramedics to non-urgent cases.
Crisis-Level Burnout and Overwork
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said the inability to consistently staff MICA units is a “crisis-level” issue, with lives at risk due to delayed or unavailable intensive care support.
“Our dual model — ALS working with MICA — is critical,” Hill said. “When MICA isn’t available, especially in a region as large as Geelong, patients are absolutely put at risk.”
Hill cited burnout, long hours, and a lack of recovery time as key reasons for the shortage, adding that many paramedics no longer feel willing to take on overtime to cover gaps.
Ten-Year Low in MICA Staffing
Ambulance Victoria’s own annual report shows MICA staffing has dropped to a 10-year low, with just 503.4 full-time equivalent MICA paramedics in 2023–24, down from a peak of 569.1 in 2018–19.
In response to ABC inquiries, Ambulance Victoria did not confirm how many MICA shifts had been dropped or whether they were struggling to fill rosters in Geelong. A spokesperson instead said the service uses “a dynamic operating model” to provide care through flexible staffing and cross-regional support.
Efforts are underway to increase staffing, including a record intake of MICA trainees, but the agency has not explained the reasons behind the staffing decline or its plans to reverse it.
