Yeah he go in...................lol ( Archived) (3)

I can't begin to describe the frustrations of dealing with Indians at telstra call centres. I have a username with my telstra bigpond account for business, which I cannot use, because the Indian at the other end misspelled it and it is there FOREVER. Telstra's only suggestion was that I pay an extra $1.00 per month, and get a new one. Guess what I told them???

Anyway, here is a troubling story...

Triple-0 response puts life in danger

27th June 2008


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AMBULANCE officers were forced to spend an hour and a half stabilising a Woolooga grandfather before he could be transported to Gympie Hospital on Monday morning after a Triple-0 call from his terrified wife ended in interstate confusion.

Suffering from emphysema, pneumonia and suspected collapsed lungs, Colin Kerle began having extreme breathing difficulties at the time his wife Michelle tried to ring for an ambulance at 5am on Monday.

When Mrs Kerle dialled Triple-0, her call was answered by a Sydney-based male call centre operator with a thick Indian accent, and the two had some trouble understanding each other.

Mrs Kerle originally said she needed the Gympie Hospital and, according to Telstra, it was 22 seconds into the emergency call when it was established she needed an ambulance.

After a conversation lasting exactly one minute and seven seconds, the Triple-0 call was transferred to a different service centre in New South Wales.

This is where Emergency Services took over and Telstra's role ended, Telstra said.

While all of this was happening, Mr Kerle's condition deteriorated to the point a family spokeswoman said he had "turned blue".

After being put through to the ambulance dispatch centre somewhere in New South Wales, Mrs Kerle gave the new operator her full address at Woolooga, only to be told no such address existed.

The centre operator had assumed the Kerles lived in Woolgooga, New South Wales, not Woolooga, Queensland. Eventually the confusion was straightened out and a Gympie ambulance was dispatched but not before Mrs Kerle was distraught with frustration.

Telstra was unapologetic yesterday, saying they had a multicultural employment policy but they "absolutely, 100 per cent had no call centres overseas".

!x "OUR operator does have an accent but being a large company we employ people from many ethnic backgrounds," a Telstra spokeswoman said.
...

"The patient was stabilised before being transported to the Gympie Hospital."

This is believed to have taken between one and two hours. Mr Kerle was still recuperating in Gympie Hospital last night, a family spokesperson said yesterday.