BORDER paramedics have to deal with drug-fuelled violent patients at least twice a week, leaving them vulnerable.

Team manager at Wodonga Ambulance Station, Mike Fuery, yesterday said that dealing with patients on drugs was now commonplace and meant staff needed to take more safety precautions.

“There’s always the risk out there of uncontrolled environments, but when you have people taking substances that have an unpredictable effect, it’s a whole different ball-game,” he said.

“They often lash out and see you as a threat to themselves.

“They go into defensive mode and start striking out, not realising we’re paramedics and trying to help them.”

Mr Fuery shared the paramedics’ point of view at a round-table forum in Wodonga yesterday, where Senators Fiona Nash and Bridget McKenzie heard from health workers, police, rehabilitation services, mental health workers and indigenous leaders on how ice was affecting the Border.

It was the first stop in a regional tour for Senator Nash, the Assistant Health Minister.

She will use the result to inform the national ice taskforce when it is making its recommendations.

Mr Fuery said the productive discussion had provided a chance to highlight the realities of what paramedics dealt with.

“We are put in a difficult situation about twice a week — sometimes more, sometime less — where we need an enhanced level of personal safety,” he said.

Those incidents did not always involve ice.

Albury Wodonga Health dual diagnosis manager Gary Croton said that for them, it was about stressing the need for “a range of tailored treatments” because the drug did not affect everyone the same way.

Senator Nash said the government would hold the taskforce to a tight turnaround, with an interim report due in July and the full report due in September in time for the next Council of Australian Governments meeting.

It was important communities such as Albury-Wodonga had a say, as they “often have the solutions we need”, she said.

“We need to make sure the money we are going to spend is properly targeted — we don’t want to spend money just for the sake of it, we want to make sure it’s going to have an effect,” she said.

Ms McKenzie said the North East had only 15 rehabilitation beds — at Odyssey House at Molyullah, near Benalla — and she wanted that increased.