Paramedics' injury rates around twice as high as police, warranting detailed studies and interventions

Paramedics have one of the most dangerous occupations in Australia but detailed studies and interventions could begin to reduce those risks.

That’s according to CQUniversity’s Professor Brian Maguire who is the principal author of the first study to examine the risks of fatalities and injuries among Australian paramedics.

Writing in the Medical Journal of Australia, Professor Maguire and his colleagues found that no other group identified by Safe Work Australia had a higher injury rate than paramedics.

He says that the highest proportion of non-fatal injuries is associated with lifting (eg, back injuries) but violence against paramedics also contributes significantly.

SWA reported on detailed rates for serious injuries per 1000 workers per year, by occupational groups, for 2008-09. During this period, the rate among paramedics was 94.6/1000 and the national average among all occupations in Australia was 13.0/1000.

“The rate among paramedics is more than seven times higher than the national average,” Professor Maguire says. “The groups with the highest injury rates were skilled agricultural workers (82.9/1000), police officers (42.7/1000), road and rail transport drivers (33.1/1000), enrolled nurses (25.8/1000), and health carers and aides (20.0/1000).”

Meantime, paramedic fatalities result largely from transportation events.

“The rate of 9.3 per 100,000 for paramedics is more than five times higher than the average rate for all workers. For fatal vehicle accidents, the rate of 5.8 per 100,000 workers for paramedics is over 11 times higher than the rate for all workers (0.5 per 100 000).”

Professor Maguire’s work is at a foundation level but he is working on developing partnerships between Australian ambulance services and researchers to enable efforts to reduce occupational injuries and fatalities. Professor Maguire was the first to study occupational fatalities among paramedics in the United States. He is one of the world’s leading experts in the area of paramedic occupational risk analysis.

“More specific data are needed for detailed occupational risk studies,” he says. “The development and adoption of sound injury-prevention interventions requires work directed at standardisation of data collection, reliable data analyses, development of interventions, testing of interventions, publication of findings, and large-scale deployment of successful interventions.”

Professor Maguire has co-authored the Medical Journal of Australia report with Prof Peter O’Meara from La Trobe Uni, Assoc Prof Richard Brightwell from Edith Cowan Uni, Associate Lecturer Barbara O’Neill from CQUniversity and Prof Gerard Fitzgerald from QUT