Public ending up driving the ambulance

By Beck Vass
Police officers, firefighters and civilians are being forced to drive ambulances amid a shortage of St John Ambulance officers.
St John Western Bay of Plenty area manager Jeremy Gooders said such instances were rare but were occurring because of a lack of volunteers.
At a motorcycle accident at Mount Maunganui last month, a policeman had to drive the ambulance to Tauranga Hospital while the St John officer looked after the patient.
"We are short staffed. It's a growing town with growing demand," Mr Gooders said.
"At times we are very pushed. Where we have used fire personnel or police to drive is for unusually large incidents where we need to use all of our officers in the patient's care. Or sometimes the patient needs two skilled officers in the back administering care and we don't have a third officer available," Mr Gooders said.
"We should always have two people in an ambulance and that's what we strive to do and we achieve it nearly all of the time through a big commitment of our volunteer officers."
Single-crewing posed dangers both for patients and for staff who attended callouts at all hours and sometimes were faced with violence, he said.
Mr Gooders said St John had a business plan which aimed to have two qualified officers in each ambulance at every callout but much of this depended on Ministry of Health funding.
"St John is still heavily reliant on volunteers ... if an ambulance is half-crewed then officers can't be both driving and in the back looking after patients."People were spending more time in their full-time jobs and many employers trying to run businesses couldn't allow people to leave work to attend accidents or training. The Katikati ambulance had only one full-time staff officer, leaving the ambulance off the road for two to three shifts per week - usually at the busy time for callouts at weeknights and weekends and when other medical staff such as doctors are unavailable.
This was far more "critical" than other ambulance staff shortages, he said.
In Maketu and Pukehina, St John relied on Emergency Response Vehicles which were vans manned by volunteer firefighters who attended callouts that ambulances were called to.
They were trained as St John officers to a basic level and responded because they were often faster and more reliable in rural emergencies, Mr Gooders said.
Meanwhile, the National Distribution Union, which represented some of St John paid officers, said four more full-time St John officers were required in Tauranga and Mount Maunganui before someone died as a result of staff shortages.
While there were no exact figures, it was believed that about 60 per cent of all ambulance callouts in New Zealand were staffed by only one officer, which was considered unsafe, Mr Chapman said."I think what's happened is, particularly in the Bay of Plenty and a lot of other areas where population growth is increasing, the ambulance services aren't adjusting their staffing arrangements for the areas."
* The ability to withstand the high levels of training and education
* A high level of fitness and motivation
* A commitment to ongoing training and education sessions and courses which can often involve time away
* To be available for work for at least one shift per week
For more information contact Ken Hansen or Jeremy Gooders on 07 578 3960.