It began with a fatal on the Hume Highway near the Colo Vale exit and continued from that point: a car crash at Berrima, a fatal lightning strike in Corbett Gardens and a fall from a cliff at Belmore Falls.

While this may not be the norm, it’s not a unique situation and it no doubt put strain on our ambulance officers and other emergency services. These are situations that made the news but there are also those other cases where our ambulance officers were needed for potential life-saving assistance. One reader commented on the Southern Highland News Facebook page that she had called an ambulance on Sunday afternoon. Her experience drove home just how much pressure was on the ambulance system over the weekend.

“When my husband was taken to Bowral Hospital on Sunday night (February 19), I was told by a reliable source that our local team was working out of area and the two paramedics who transported my husband were on call. Those poor men had been working since 7am on Saturday morning (February 18)”.

This was in relation to a Southern Highland News story about increasing pressure on the ambulance service. The News reported there were no ambulance officers on call after 11am each day and Bowral intensive care paramedics were sent "nearly every shift" to work in Sydney.

A NSW Ambulance spokesman said deployment rosters were regularly reviewed to ensure all residents in the Highlands would have access to emergency care if needed. They added the new rostering system was developed in consultation with ambulance staff and unions. But this still doesn’t mean ambulance staff were happy with the final outcome.

Failure to provide adequate ambulance services in any community is like playing Russian roulette. Is Ambulance NSW playing this dangerous game with the lives of Highlanders? This community has a population of more than 48,000 people, with an average age of 46 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. There are two major highways – the Hume and Illawarra – that run through the region. Surely these facts alone support the need for intensive care paramedics to be on hand in the region at all times. Using on-call staff who may have already put in a full day’s work saving lives is not a solution.