Rescue trust says funding must rise

A Lakes District Air Rescue Trust helicopter during a recent training exercise beside  Lake...
A Lakes District Air Rescue Trust helicopter during a recent training exercise beside Lake Wakatipu. Photo: LDART
The Lakes District Air Rescue Trust is "waiting with bated breath" for a new air ambulance operating model to be rolled out across the country.

The mission hours flown by the trust, which covers much of the lower South Island, continue to rise sharply.

Chairman Jules Tapper said it would have "gone bust" had it not got  Government top-ups in each of the past two financial years,  enabling it to record a tiny surplus.

Since 2012, it had been bulk-funded for 314 operating hours a year, but exceeded those hours the following year.

The trust  flew 683 hours last year.

"We’ve been struggling — every hour that you overflow, it’s costing us $1600 an hour."

As well as the Lakes District, the trust provides accident and emergency and search and rescue cover for Fiordland, Mt Aspiring National Park, Stewart Island, southern skifields and a huge swath of the Southern Ocean.

It contracts Heliworks Queenstown and Te Anau’s Southern Lakes Helicopters to have a commercial helicopter on standby at all times.

About three-quarters of its work — and most of its funding — comes from the Ministry of Health and the ACC through the National Ambulance Sector Office (Naso).

The rest comes from the police, the Southern DHB, the Rescue Co-ordination Centre and corporate and community donations.

Mr Tapper said the trust’s  five-year contract with Naso had been extended twice while the air ambulance service national review  continued, first until March 31, 2018 and then until October 31.

The new operating model was expected to be in place by November.

The number of operating hours and the per-hour dollar rate at which the trust was funded would have to rise significantly, he said.

The trust’s  surplus was  only $15,000 on a turnover of $2.3 million in 2016-17.  It operated on a "low-cost model", and the region’s helicopter industry meant it did not need to own the machines.

But it had a "huge" territory to cover, while training and keeping equipment up to date was expensive.

"We’ve never been fully funded — people across the country would be astounded to know that.

"I think a lot of people just take it for granted," Mr Tapper said.

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