On 3 May 2021, the AEAV met with Ambulance Victoria as part of the AV Enterprise Agreement 2020 Working Group commitment.
The Working Groups were established via the AV Enterprise Agreement to cover the topics that Ambulance Victoria refused to acknowledge and accept during the enterprise bargaining process such as changing the Alcohol and Other Drug Policy and a trial on Spares.
The focus of this Working Group meeting was on AV’s Alcohol and Other Drug Policy. Recently, the AEAV released its submissions on AV’s current Alcohol and Other Drug Policy with a number of recommendations including but not limited to:
- AV adopt the Society of Hair Testing (SoHT) Guidelines for drug testing in hair including its cut-off levels;
- AV accept and recognise environmental exposure to drugs, especially AV medications in the operational and support environments is a real and prevalent possibility;
- AV compile, in conjunction with the AEAV, a list of approved accredited laboratories that perform testing of samples.
As expected, AV were not willing to even acknowledge that environmental exposure is a real and prevalent threat to their workforce.
AV advised the AEAV that it will continue to review the submissions and come to the next meeting with more feedback.
If you want to get involved in the Working Group, contact us via email at [email protected] or call us on 9287 1713.
