Two Wanganui women have made formal complaints to St John Ambulance after an elderly woman was left lying on the pavement at the Gonville Shopping centre for almost an hour after she fell over.
However, St John Ambulance operations manager Jimmy Seville said the incident was disappointing, but a surge in calls meant the organisation's two ambulances were busy at other jobs, something which wasn't common, but did occasionally happen.
One of the complainants, Jodi Munden, said she didn't see the woman, in her 70s, fall but understood she had slipped on something outside a bakery in the shopping centre and hurt herself.
The woman remained lying on the pavement for the next 50 minutes or so with her husband at her side, she said.
Ms Munden said she put in a complaint about how long the woman had to wait because "it's not good enough".
As a caregiver, she had some medical training and was concerned about the effect stress and shock could have on the pair, and she didn't know how serious her injuries were.
A nurse from the Gonville Medical Centre came over and checked on the woman but didn't take her blood pressure, she said.
Ms Munden even cycled to the ambulance centre, saw other ambulances in the garage and couldn't understand why they weren't in use.
She said she was told a number of calls had come in at the same time, and while she didn't blame the ambulance service, she was disappointed that there weren't more facilities available.
Two ambulances were not enough, she said. Mr Seville said the woman was triaged, or assessed, by the emergency communications call-taker, and it was from there they got their instructions.
He also understood a nurse from the Gonville Medical Centre had checked on the woman, and it was possible the communications centre had called them and asked someone to check on her.
If the situation had been life-threatening something would have been done, he said. In this case, the woman had a sprained ankle.
On the day in question, one of their ambulances was attending the forestry accident on Tokomaru West Rd that resulted in the death of Glenn Giltrap, and a surge in calls meant the second ambulance attended about six call-outs during the period the woman at Gonville was waiting.
The number of operational ambulances was calculated by a planning and development team in Auckland who looked at call-out statistics and geographical factors to decide how many were needed, he said.
Wanganui has two fully crewed front-line ambulances, and he considered that to be enough.
It would be nice to have another vehicle during the day, but he didn't have access to the data needed to back that up, he said.
Mr Seville said he had personally apologised to the patient and had tried to call both complainants to explain what happened, but had been unsuccessful in reaching them.