Forty seven people out of pocket over Airport leak

What a disgrace

SOME of the 47 people taken by ambulance from Melbourne airport last month after a mystery leak have been charged about $700 each for the ride to hospital.

They have been billed despite being caught up in a large-scale public emergency that saw a domestic terminal closed after more than 50 people were treated for nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath.

A spokesman for Victoria’s Metropolitan Ambulance Service, Kevin Broadribb, confirmed last night that under the state’s user-pays system, all of those who used ambulances during the emergency would have to pay, unless they were MAS members.

He said ambulance fees were only waived at the discretion of the MAS, but this was not invoked in the case of the February 21 airport leak, which disrupted the travel plans of 14,000 people around the nation.

So far MAS has withdrawn only one bill – one for $1400 handed to Kath Taylor and her 10-year-old daughter, Laura.

Ms Taylor said Laura complained of a headache as she passed through security at the airport after arriving on a flight from the Gold Coast.

“They (the ambulance paramedics) asked people, ‘Who is feeling sick’, and Laura said, ‘I am’,” Ms Taylor told The Australian last night.

“They took us over to an ambulance and told us it (the cost) would be covered.”

The mother and daughter were then taken to the nearest hospital, where Laura was given two headache tablets and told to go home.

When Ms Taylor was later billed $1400 for the ride, she complained to MAS. She was told yesterday that the fee would be waived because she had wrongly been told at the airport that she would not have to pay.

Ambulance operations manager Paul Holman said the service did not regret its decision to charge people for using ambulances during the airport crisis.

“People need to take out appropriate coverage for ambulance transport,” he said.

Mr Broadribb said he did not know how many of the 47 people transported from the airport had been billed, because he did not know how many were MAS members.

The Victorian Government is expected to release a report soon into the health scare. Experts have struggled to identify the cause of the leak, after having initially found no evidence of a chemical spill or gas leak.

The airport’s south terminal was shut down for eight hours, causing Virgin Blue to cancel 110 flights over two days.