Ambulance Victoria allays fears over ‘non-medical use’ face shields

Ambulance Victoria has moved to allay any fears about “non-medical use” face shields being given to paramedics to protect them from the coronavirus.

The shields, which have come from China, have a handful of sentences written on them.

One of those, written in English, says “non-medical use”.

Union boss Danny Hill admits he was “alarmed” to see the text at first, but has since looked into the matter.

“I’m not too concerned by it,” he told Neil Mitchell.

He said the face shields were merely an added layer of protection on top of goggles and existing PPE.

“You wouldn’t wear this thing by itself,” Mr Hill stressed.

Ambulance Victoria boss Tony Walker said he wasn’t sure where the shields had come from.

“They’re not ones that are part of our normal supply,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“We have face shields supplied out of the state cache that are being used by other health services.

“We’re not quite sure where this one can from, or whether it’s been purchased by somebody else but it’s not one we provide from our stores.”

Click PLAY below to hear Danny Hill on 3AW

The union said it was not happy with the re-introduction of random drug and alcohol testing of paramedics.

Mr Hill said with “morale really low” and stress “never higher” for his members, it wasn’t the time to bring it back.

“It’s not safe and it’s not a good look for a workforce that is already struggling,” he said.

Mr Walker said the program had never been put on hold.

Click PLAY below to hear Tony Walker speak with Neil Mitchell