Ballarat lifeguard stops work over parental supervision concerns

A lifeguard at Ballarat's Brown Hill Swimming Pool has refused to work until his employer, the Brown Hill Progress Association, fixes what he claims are a series of safety guideline breaches.

Ballarat newspaper The Courier has reported that Mark Mitchell, the duty lifeguard at the Brown Hill Outdoor pool since it opened for the summer season on 3rd December last year, says the pool is putting swimmers at risk by not adhering to certain Royal Life Saving Society Australia guidelines for safe pool operation.

However, The Courier reported a City of Ballarat spokesperson as stating that the guidelines had no formal, legal or regulatory status and were intended to act only as a guide for pool operators.

Mitchell, who completed his lifeguard training in November, told The Courier that parents had often left their young children at the pool despite a terms-of-entry sign by the entrance specifying that "all children under the age of 10 must be actively supervised by an adult over the age of 16 AT ALL TIMES".

Mitchell said that on one occasion seven children - all under the age of 10 - had spent the day at the pool with no adult supervision but for the lifeguards.

Mitchell told The Courier "we're lifeguards not babysitters. That's one of my pet hates, parents just dropping their kids off because it's not safe (and) if anything happens, the onus of responsibility rests on my shoulders not the committee that the pool is run by."

Mitchell also claimed that on at least one occasion the pool breached a guideline which states that at a low patronage pool like Brown Hill there should be one qualified lifeguard on duty for the first 25 people in the pool. After that, the ratio is one lifeguard for every 100 people in the pool.

Mitchell added "if your child has an accident, you're going to be looking for reasons why. What if they go down the slide and break their leg, they'll ask us why it happened. It's a bloody nightmare.

"I've got to go by what I've been taught, and that is that education and safety are paramount."

Brown Hill Progress Association spokesperson Peter Fisher would not comment on any of the alleged guideline breaches, but said the pool was open and operating according to requirements.

The Courier quoted Fisher as stating "everything was found to be OK and we've rectified any problems that we've had.

"We're a community pool, The Brown Hill Progress Association are all volunteers and we run this according to the regulations and we run this for the community."

The City of Ballarat spokesperson said council was supportive of the guidelines and encouraged parents, guardians and carers to ensure that any children under 10 were properly accompanied when attending any of council's aquatic facilities.

The Brown Hill Progress Association has run the seasonal pool since 2005 when a groundswell of community support halted the City of Ballarat's plans to close the pool because of low levels of use.

Image used for illustrative purposes only. 

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