St John rapid response unit hopes to halve response times in Dunedin

St John intensive care paramedics Pat Bain and Jenetta Johnson check the new rapid response vehicle that will be used in Dunedin. Photo / Peter McIntosh, ODT

It is hoped a new St John rapid response unit will be able to halve response times for the most serious incidents in Dunedin.

The new vehicle arrived in the city yesterday, and will be in use from Monday morning.

It was the first new St John resource in the city for 20 years, St John coastal Otago territory manager Doug Third said.

The new resource also meant a staffing boost.

Four intensive care paramedics in total, recruited from existing staff, would crew the unit in shifts, with another staff member available as a relief crew member, he said.

Their existing jobs would be backfilled with new recruits.

The additional resource was funded by extra money allocated by the Government last year in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The rapid response unit will attend all high-priority calls, freeing up ambulances to attend other calls as needed. It is hoped some response times will potentially be halved as a result.

There have been increasing concerns in the South in recent months about long wait times for ambulances to arrive.

In April, the Otago Daily Times revealed of the 9498 callers to St John in Otago and Southland this year, 818, or 9 per cent, waited more than one hour for an ambulance to arrive.

In 2020, 2225 of the 30,789 calls took more than an hour.

Last week, Balclutha man Bruce Keith described how he was left frozen and in severe pain waiting for an ambulance which never came, after he suffered a seizure.

Third said the new unit should help with wait times.

"It will make a positive difference to our response times, and getting appropriate care to people who need it."

If someone needed to be transferred to hospital, an ambulance would still be called regardless, Third said.

While the unit would mainly be used in Dunedin, there was the potential for it to travel as far north as Oamaru and as far south as Balclutha if required.

It also contained a multitude of new equipment, such as a mechanical CPR device.