ACT Ambulance Service confirms just four stretchered vehicles in operation one night this week
Between 2am and 6:30am, Chief Officer David Dutton said there were four transport stretcher ambulances and three single response units (SRU) covering the Canberra region.
SRUs are vehicles staffed by intensive care paramedics, who respond to calls for assistance and can assess whether a stretchered ambulance is required.
Transport Workers Union official Ben Sweeney said staffing was on a "knife-edge" within the service.
Mr Sweeney said there was "a lot of pressure on the roster at the moment" due to staff illness, but that lower staffing was "far too common an occurrence".
Mr Dutton said the hours between Wednesday night and Thursday morning were "challenging" for the service.
But he argued it was "incorrect" to say there were only four ambulances on duty — pointing to the three SRUs as additional resources.
"We actually had seven ambulance resources available to Canberra," he said.
He said those resources were also supported by staff at their communications centre, "which includes an ambulance paramedic or an intensive care paramedic who's able to provide 'hear and treat' or virtual support to both patients and also to our crews on duty".
"It's important to understand the reasons why Wednesday night was such a tough night and, up front, I want to acknowledge, for our staff, whether they were on the road or in our communications centre, it was a busy night," he said.
"But the reality when there are less than ideal numbers of resources is that everyone that is at work works a little bit harder.
"We did have some short-notice unscheduled sick leave on Wednesday night that impacted the number of resources that we were able to provide to the community."
Mr Dutton said there were vacancies within the service that they were hopeful of filling soon.
Around a dozen graduate paramedics are expected to begin shifts in the coming weeks, and 10 qualified paramedics from interstate will start in Canberra in November.
"Many of the challenges that ACT Ambulance faces are being felt by jurisdictions around the country... these are not problems that are unique or special.
"We are a growing city with a growing population and our ambulance service will need to grow to meet the high standards of care that we desire to provide.
"Our emergency response times, when you benchmark nationally, are the best in Australia, so that is positive and that is encouraging."
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