Country medics on brink
Only generosity of doctors and nurses keeping rural emergency service going, writes Tess Brunton.
A nationwide network of emergency doctors warns their ‘‘precarious’’ funding situation could put lives at risk.
Primary Response in Medical Emergencies (Prime) responders support mainly rural communities from about 75 sites but say they are already not paid for call-outs and a lack of awareness about the service could lead to its demise.
Waimate Medical Centre GP Sarah Creegan, one of hundreds of Prime responders, said the service was ‘‘precarious at the moment’’.
Cutting the service was a real possibility, which for some patients could mean the difference between life and death.
The service cost her ‘‘thousands’’ of dollars to run, but brought in virtually no money.
‘‘It is stupid to continue doing Prime, but we do stupid things because we are motivated, we love the work, we love the communities we live in,’’ Creegan said.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners president Tim Molloy said all Prime providers were struggling.
‘‘The only reason we still have a Prime service is out of the goodness of the hearts of people who provide the services,’’ he said.
‘‘The fact that there are so many dedicated rural doctors and nurses spread across this country meant that we are still able to provide a co-joint primary care and ambulance response to medical emergencies in rural areas.’’
It was an embarrassment that most people did not know what Prime was and what its drivers’ flashing green lights meant. There had been no public-awareness campaign.
Prime is undergoing a review with submissions on a draft report open until Friday.
The Ministry of Health bulkfunds St John to provide Prime services nationwide.
Ministry National Ambulance Sector team leader Jon Leach said national funding increased from $1.73 million in the 2011/12 financial year to $1.82m in 2016/17.
However, the overall responses rose by 26 per cent, from 2610 to 3298, between 2010 and 2015.
The final review document is expected before July.
St John assistant director of clinical operations Dan Ohs said the organisation supported the review of Prime.
‘‘The role of Prime is to ensure high quality access to pre-hospital emergency care in areas where there is a shortage of suitably trained paramedics, or where ambulance service rural response times may be longer than usual,’’ Ohs said.
St John would administer the services as per usual, he said.
For Creegan, there was a limit to how long most Prime workers could keep doing it.
‘‘It’s hard work and tiring. Nobody even knows Prime exists, so nobody would even notice people stop doing it.’’