Ambulance wait warning
A recently retired St John paramedic fears someone in rural Taranaki may die while waiting for an ambulance because the service is so stretched.
At night, just four frontline ambulances and crews were normally on duty to cover the entire region from Pātea to Mōkau and around the coast, Brian Story, who retired last year after a 40-year career in the ambulance service, said.
‘‘I’ve heard from people there have sometimes only been three crews on because they didn’t have the crews available for whatever reason. They’re not telling the public there are only three ambulances serving the whole province at times,’’ he said.
‘‘You imagine four ambulances for a region the size of Taranaki and, at times, only three on the road. That’s not providing a service.’’
South Taranaki and Stratford districts often had no ambulance available in their district because all the vehicles and crews were on jobs in north Taranaki, he said.
‘‘If someone was critically injured in the main street of Hāwera, but the crew and vehicle is in New Plymouth, they’ll have to wait at least an hour for an ambulance.’’
In a statement, Hato Hone St John Taranaki area operation manager Megan Stewart said St John ambulances operated as one network, and all generally transported patients to Taranaki Base Hospital.
Once any ambulance completed its incident at a hospital it travelled to the station with the greatest predicted need, not necessarily the station it originated from.
‘‘This is the case in New Plymouth, Stratford and Hāwera.
‘‘Residents in Taranaki can be assured that during day shifts St John Ambulance operates several vehicles in the region, comprising six ambulances, two patient transfer vehicles and two rapid response vehicles.
‘‘During night shifts we have four ambulances and one rapid response vehicle ready to be dispatched at any time. Additionally, we offer a patient transfer service until 2am.’’
Stewart said St John and the wider health sector had been under immense pressure this year, with winter colds, flu, Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses arriving in force.
St John was managing the demand by prioritising the most life-threatening calls, with clinical teams carrying out telephone welfare checks on patients awaiting an ambulance response.
For two years before he retired, Story was based in Hāwera and drove a patient transport vehicle between Hāwera Hospital and Taranaki Base Hospital. A patient transport vehicle does not normally respond to emergency calls, apart from critical cases involving cardiac arrests.
‘‘Quite often on a night shift, there were no crews on station for my whole shift, they were always in New Plymouth.
‘‘I would hear on the RT vehicles being responded from the north down to Hāwera and further south.’’
Since last September, when the spare ambulance at the Hāwera station was taken away, if the evening shift in Hāwera arrived at work and the day crew was out on a job, they could hear calls coming in but could not respond until the ambulance was returned, he said.
Story said he often saw ambulances passing his Stratford home.
‘‘It’ll be 7 or 8am, and I see a Hāwera vehicle under lights and siren, racing through to the north.
‘‘That means the New Plymouth vehicles are all tied up, both Stratford vehicles are tied up and Hāwera was the only free one in the province.’’
Stratford was classed as a twovehicle station in the daytime, but one of them was always dispatched straight to Inglewood in the morning, he said. ‘‘That’s what happens with the population in the north and so few vehicles, that’s why people have to wait for ages.’’
Story said continually driving at speed from one end of the region to the other, over pot-holed roads and with increasing traffic, was stressful and put crews at risk.
If a crash like the one involving a health shuttle and a ute that occurred in Rolleston, Christchurch, on Friday, where seven people were injured, had happened in Taranaki, the service would have struggled to cope, he said.
‘‘I feel sorry for my excolleagues, they do an amazing job. New Zealand ambulance crews are very well trained and qualified, I just feel sorry that they’re bearing the brunt of the situation.’’
South Taranaki District mayor Phil Nixon said he had not heard complaints about delays getting ambulances, but had been approached by another person who worked for St John with concerns about ambulance services in the district. ‘‘If the situation is that all the ambulances are concentrated in New Plymouth I would be really concerned for us down here in South Taranaki in case of emergency.’’