Ambulance service goes high visibility

READY FOR DUTY: St John Ambulance representatives Roger Sinclair, Stephen Smith and Brendon Hutchinson alongside Reverend Pelly Pirikahu bless Hawke's Bay's first yellow ambulance. PHOTO/PAUL TAYLOR HBT140431-02

Hawke's Bay received its first big yellow ambulance yesterday, as the St John service welcomes a new look into its fleet.

St John is New Zealand's largest provider of ambulance services, serving 90 per cent of the population, and transporting more than 415,832 patients to hospital and responding to 351,730 emergency incidents nationwide every year.

St John Hawke's Bay district operations manager Stephen Smith said the move to yellow ambulances aimed to increase safety and visibility.

"Yellow vehicles are the most noticeable on the road, particularly in low light," Mr Smith said.

"Yellow is also the most visible colour for people with colour blindness (which affects an estimated one in 12 (8 per cent) men and one in 200 (0.5 per cent) women."

The new-look ambulance is the first of its type in St John's Central region. As part of the new design ambulances are bolder and have been fitted with more reflective signage than that on the predominantly white vehicles. The distinctive green Battenburg (after the cake) markings are also known to maximise the visibility of the vehicles.

"St John is continually looking for ways to improve the quality and safety of our care and services, having our ambulances and other frontline vehicles yellow and with this new design, is one way we can make them safer and more visible on the road," said Mr Smith.

He believed the new look would result in an improvement in the public noticing and giving way to St John vehicles as they travelled to and from treating patients.

"We are committed to converting our fleet to yellow over the next 10 years - with around 40 new vehicles each year heading out on the road in the new yellow design," he said.

Last year in St John Central region (from Wellington to North Waikato and coast to coast), St John attended 120,160 emergency incidents and treated and transported 139,589 patients.

"As a charity we rely on the support of the communities we serve and the generosity of our donors to ensure that we have vital resources for our frontline crews. This new vehicle ensures that we can continue to meet the needs of Hawke's Bay communities," Mr Smith said.

The new yellow ambulance was officially blessed and dedicated for service yesterday at the Hastings St John Ambulance Station.