St John Taupō move to new earthquake-proof ambulance station

St John Lakes territory shift managers Christina Crisp (left) and Janeen Whitmore outside St John Taupō's new purpose-built station on Keehan Drive. Photo / Laurilee McMichael

If you've walked or driven past St John's Paora Hapi St ambulance station in Taupō recently and thought it looked a bit quiet, you'd be right.

That's because the operational part of St John - the ambulances, staff and many of the volunteers - have moved up to a new purpose-built station on the corner of Keehan Drive and Crown Rd, Taupō.

The new building is bigger and has more facilities but most importantly, the garaging area is built to Importance Level Four (IL4) standard, meaning it is critical post-disaster infrastructure that will still be operational immediately after an earthquake or other disastrous event.

St John Lakes territory shift managers Christina Crisp and Janeen Whitmore gave the Taupō & Turangi Weekender a tour of the new station, which is significantly larger than the old one and also allows extra space for future growth.

Christina, who is also the Taupō station manager, says the St John building on the corner of Paora Hapi and Ruapehu streets in the Taupō town centre was originally built as a St John hall in 1953 and added onto 11 times over the years, with garages, office and extensions forwards, sideways and upwards. The last addition was in 2002.

But after the Christchurch earthquake when seismic standards were reviewed, it became apparent that the building's garage was not up to IL4 standard.

So bad was the Taupō station's rating, it was put in the top 10 priorities for St John nationally for an upgrade or a new building to meet the IL4 standard.

The cost of upgrading the Paora Hapi St station was prohibitive, and in any case, it was too small. Another consideration was patient-centred deployment, or being able to reach patients quickly. The pattern of callouts showed the best position for an ambulance station was somewhere within 2km of the new site at Keehan Drive because the ambulances do not just respond to emergencies in Taupō town but further afield as well.

"More than 70 per cent of our jobs [from Paora Hapi St] we were coming through the CBD to this side of town," Christina says. "Everything added together meant that it was more appropriate to be on this side of town. We can get quickly around town because you just drop down onto Taharepa Rd and that splits both ways.

She says increasing traffic congestion around the Taupō town centre also made it difficult for ambulances to get away quickly from the Paora Hapi St station at peak times.

"Friday nights, weekends, weekday mornings between 8am and 9am and [from] 3pm to 5pm, it didn't matter which way you turned down in the CBD, there was traffic."

Janeen Whitmore (left) and Christina Crisp in the earthquake-proof garage area of St John's new Taupō station. Photo / Laurilee McMichael

While all the operational side of St John Taupō is now based from Keehan Drive, it has retained the Paora Hapi St station because the hall, which only needs to meet IL2 standard, is used for community programmes such as St John Youth, first aid training and meetings. The garages are largely empty and only non-essential equipment is stored in them now, Christina says.

Aside from the IL4 garage for all its emergency vehicles ("we can now fit all the trucks inside whereas before some had to be outside"), the new St John station has a full kitchen with a cubbyhole for each staff member to store food, a dedicated training room and more office areas for administration, or for staff to study in. There are six rest areas where staff rostered on after 11pm can take a break between calls, a locker room with a locker for every person, a big sluice for washing equipment and a special restocking storeroom to the side of the garage so that the trucks can be quickly cleaned up and restocked after every job.

The station has 35 full-time staff and 65 all up, which includes volunteers and others. It has three double-crewed vehicles on the front line of every shift. In addition there are also two patient transfer vehicles that do a scheduled run from Taupō every day.

The building is not owned by St John but is leased from local businessman Jamie Keehan, who built it with input from St John and fitted it out to their requirements.

"He was absolutely fantastic," Christina says. "For example 'what sort of lockers do you want, how many do you need', all the stuff like that, he was fantastic about what we wanted where."

Planning for the new station began several years ago and construction began on October 1 last year, with a short pause for lockdown. St John moved in in June.

Christina says it's little things that makes the operation more efficient, like doors that close automatically after a truck has left, and being able to drive in one side of the building and out the other, rather than having to back in as at Paora Hapi St.

"Just being in a purpose-built station and having the space to do your work when you're back here. You go from the garage straight to one room for restocking. The timeliness, just everything being modern and up to date systems.

"It's good for staff morale going from the other station to something nice and new ... it's fantastic."