Newrapid response team
Canterbury prove too strong for Makos
‘‘A serious crash could take you away from the practice for up to eight hours and we were not paid for our time, yet the police could sanction you for refusing to go. It was really silly.’’ Dr Buzz Burrell, GP
Crashes on rural highways are a reality for many who live in the provinces, with help often hours away.
But a new initiative has been set up in Marlborough to deliver a speedier response, and ultimately save lives.
Four of Marlborough’s registered nurses and one doctor are undergoing specialist training on rural emergency responses under a scheme known as Prime Response in Medical Emergency, or PRIME.
Each responder lives in either Renwick or Wairau Valley, west of Blenheim along State Highway 63, which had seen an increase in accidents since November, when it became the main Picton ot Christchurch route following the Kaiko¯ura earthquake..
Blenheim St John station manager Rebecca Lee said there were ambulance stations at Blenheim, Picton, Havelock and Okiwi Bay, but there were still some areas that took longer for an ambulance to reach, including Wairau Valley.
‘‘It’s great to work in partnership with PRIME. We can always use more coverage up there. I think the closest ambulance station apart from us would have been either Tapawera or Murchison.’’
Renwick Medical Centre GP and PRIME responder Dr Buzz Burrell wrote the manual for PRIME when it was first established by the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network in the 1990s.
He was a GP on the West Coast at the time.
‘‘I was one of not many rural GPs in the South Island. We had a real problem with rural general practices being ethically obligated to attend accidents and callouts in rural areas,’’ Burrell said.
‘‘It was stressful for the untrained. Even for me, having been an intensive care registrar, it’s quite different when you’re literally lying under a car in the Lewis Pass trying to ventilate someone who’s not breathing. And it’s time consuming.
‘‘A serious crash could take you away from the practice for up to eight hours and we were not paid for our time, yet the police could sanction you for refusing to go. It was really silly.’’
ACC agreed to fund PRIME responder callouts to accidents, and funded the training provided by St John.
The Ministry of Health and ACC jointly funded each responder’s kit, which included resuscitation equipment, an IV kit, a neck brace and a wound management pack.
‘‘It was great because it meant trained people were turning up within minutes and able to do everything a medium-level paramedic could do,’’ Burrell said.
‘‘Nearly all rural practices signed up to the PRIME contract, because they got funding to train and attend accidents. But Marlborough, when I got here [in 2014] was one region that had no cover.’’
Burrell had always planned to launch the scheme in Marlborough, but the closure of State Highway 1 after the November earthquakes and the subsequent increase in traffic on the alternate highway made it a necessity, he said.
‘‘The increase in crashes since then has been well documented and I’ve gone to about three crashes further up the highway from my house [in Wairau Valley] myself. I was very nervous about the highway being uncovered ... It is heartbreaking when you hear of a fatality in a car crash in Wairau Valley and there wasn’t a primary responder there in time to do what they could.’’