The St John ambulance service was asking the Government for an additional $40 million each year, on top of the $89 million already being received from crown agencies, chief operating officer Kevin Tate of Auckland said this week.
The additional funding would be used to recruit 400 paid staff around the country in "hot spots" identified in a St John strategic planning exercise completed about three years ago, he said.
However, a request for two more paid staff in Wanaka had yet to make its way through the system and would have to be addressed next year, Mr Tate said.
The Wanaka proposal was not included in negotiations last year, when St John signed a two year "hot spot" funding contract for 79 more staff with the Ministry of Health and ACC.
"They [Wanaka] haven't made the cut yet but they will certainly be on our plans," Mr Tate said.
St John began appointing the 79 additional staff in January, with the southern region getting four: two in Invercargill, one in Milton and one in Te Anau.
St John's national "hot spot" list for the ministry and ACC was developed after looking at workloads, performance criteria and operational requirements in each region.
"It was a major document stating what we believed was required to reinforce places where they were unduly relying on volunteers," he said.
Some small towns were relying on volunteers to be the second response crew but the service could not expect to work them too hard.
Realistically, it made sense to have paid staff, Mr Tate said.
In the hope of attracting more funding, the "hot spot" strategic planning document had also been forwarded to a health select committee this year and to a Ministry of Health-ACC strategic planning review team in recent weeks, Mr Tate said.
The select committee was considering the issue of double-crewing ambulances while the ministry and ACC were developing an ambulance strategy, Mr Tate said.
He believed the results would be released soon.
