This week marks 37 years since the introduction of female paramedics in Victorian ambulance services.
Ambulance Victoria (AV) paramedic Sandra Tozer, who is based in East Gippsland, was one of the first 30 women to join the ranks when she started her ambulance career in 1991. She recalled some patients were shocked to have a woman provide them emergency care.
“They thought that it was ‘dangerous’ at the time,” Sandra said.
“There were some confused looks when I would back the ambulance into a driveway. Everyone referred to us as nurses and it took a while to change that way of thinking.”
Victoria’s first pioneering paramedic women, Andrea Wyatt and Patricia Richards, joined the service on July 27, 1987.
Sandra, who followed about four years later, said the novelty of being a female paramedic had its challenges as the Victorian community had only ever known male paramedics.
“One time a patient figured out that a female was going to drive them, and they got out of the ambulance and wouldn’t get back in until a man drove,” she said.
“It was impressive for him to jump out with a broken leg, but once I put on the ‘matron voice’ and ordered him back into the ambulance, I didn’t hear a peep out of him.”
Over the past three decades Sandra has served as an Ambulance Officer, Advanced Life Support (ALS) paramedic, Team Manager, Paramedic Community Support Co-Ordinator and worked in Emergency Management and as a Senior Team Manager.
Sandra is still working at AV as a Senior Team Manager in East Gippsland but, remarkably, now has more women than men as colleagues.
Women now make up more than 52 per cent of AV’s operational workforce.
A barrier-breaking career in paramedicine wasn’t something that Sandra had deliberately pursued.
She admitted she fell into paramedicine after supporting a friend through their application for NSW Ambulance.
“I believe it was meant to be and I haven’t regretted it since,” she said.
After completing training in Melbourne, Sandra was deployed to the Mornington Peninsula where she was the first female to work out of the Rosebud branch and spent years working alongside only male colleagues.
“When the next female was appointed to the branch some years later, it was about 12 months before I could work with her, as two females on the truck was not allowed at the time,” she said.
“Being the first female into the region had its challenges, and while the majority of male ambulance officers were receptive to women joining, we had to prove that we had the capability to do the work.”
Sandra believes while the service began introducing more women paramedics, it was the influence of women educators and training which helped change the service over time.
Today there are many women in leadership positions at AV such as Regional Directors, Area Managers, Team Managers and Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance (MICA) paramedics.
Currently, two thirds of AV’s Board and half of the AV Executive are women.
Chief executive Jane Miller said it is critical that AV has a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the community it serves.
“I express my gratitude to the women who led the way, overcoming extraordinary barriers to join the ambulance service in the late ’80s and early ’90s,” Jane said.
“There is no doubt that we are a better and stronger organisation because of their leadership and advocacy.”
