Ambulance Tasmania has admitted that more than 100 of its vehicles were driving around unregistered for six days at the beginning of 2017.
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Labor Leader Rebecca White submitted a Right to Information request to the Health and Human Services Department in June, demanding to know whether Ambulance Tasmania had failed to register any of its vehicles in the 2016-17 financial year.
And, as was revealed in the DHHS’ August 7 response, Ambulance Tasmania did fail to do so.
The unregistered vehicles – four of which were not ambulances - received a total of 14 speeding infringement notices in the six days their registration was expired in early 2017, but these are waived when incurred in emergencies.
Ambulance Tasmania chief executive Neil Kirby said the “regrettable … administrative error” saw registration fees paid six days late.
“It was rectified as soon as the error was discovered, and fortunately there was no impact on either patients or staff,” he said.
Mr Kirby stressed that Ambulance Tasmania had implemented new procedures to prevent something similar from happening again.
But Ms White said the “failure” proved the health system was “in crisis”.
“Basic but important tasks such as registering the ambulance fleet aren’t happening because stressed staff are doing so much work,” Ms White said.
Health and Community Services Union state secretary Tim Jacobson also believed that “pressure in the system” could have caused the error.