St John set for busiest season

A woman injured in a car crash near Makarora last winter is carried to a St John Ambulance. Photo...
A woman injured in a car crash near Makarora last winter is carried to a St John Ambulance. Photo by Matthew Haggart.
Wanaka St John station manager Don McMillan says the service is in good heart as it gears up for the winter snow sports season, despite concerns expressed by the town's GPs about a "frustrating lack of ambulance capacity".

A recruitment drive in April has doubled the volunteer roster of 11 to 23 people and their training should be completed by the end of July, he said.

Four paid officers have been appointed to assist the two-paramedic station from June 9 until the end of October.

And ambulances will be increased to three with the "district spare" ambulance being relocated to Wanaka for the winter.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health is considering a request for two additional full-time paid officers to join the staff, under a Government-funded "hot-spot scheme".

If granted, it would allow the station to manned by paid staff on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week, year-round basis, St John southern region operations manager Doug Third, of Dunedin, confirmed.

Wanaka's St John service is typically busiest during the winter.

March and April were "quiet", with 47 and 45 callouts respectively, compared with 108 and 131 in July and August last year.

However, callouts have been increasing every year, even in the quiet months, and three years ago the one-paramedic station was increased to two.

A volunteer roster would still be needed to support paid officers even if they were increased to four, Mr Third said.

However, he did not think Wanaka needed another ambulance all year round.

It already had three operational vehicles (one is a van used at events) and was getting the district spare for the winter.

"We have the capacity vehicle-wise, but not the crews," Mr Third said.

GPs at Wanaka Medical Centre, which has the Government's Prime contract to assist St John with medical care for people through the 111 system, wrote to Health Minister David Cunliffe on March 21 raising concerns about "deficient ambulance transport systems".

This created pressure on the medical centre's cramped premises because patients had to be held at the centre until an ambulance was available to take a patient to hospital at Dunstan (90km away) or Dunedin (280km away), the GPs wrote.

"Our resources are . . . being stretched to the limit with the added burden of providing staff to monitor the condition of patients whose injuries may include head, spinal or abdominal injuries as well as the limb fractures typical of ski and snowboard trauma . . . We are feeling exposed to the risk of a poorly performing service," they said.

Mr McMillan said he had seen a copy of the GPs' letter.

He agreed Wanaka Medical Centre staff had helped St John out at times and was not upset by the contents.

The service had struggled over the summer holidays and during the Upper Clutha A and P Show weekend in March, because volunteers had taken leave or fallen ill themselves.

The service had not planned to be caught short over summer and volunteers deserved and needed breaks, Mr McMillan said.

The extra winter staff and ambulance should enable the service to allocate one crew to a later shift to cover night skiing at the Snow Park, he said.

 

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