Ambulance response time concerns doctor
A Twizel doctor has raised concerns about the length of time it took for an ambulance to move a patient a few hundred metres to be airlifted to hospital, but St John is defending its response.
Twizel-based Mackenzie Health Centre doctor Tim Gardner said a patient from Ruataniwha presented himself at his centre with a medical condition on Thursday morning and it was deemed necessary he be taken to Dunedin for treatment.
Gardner called for an ambulance to take the man to Dunedin Hospital. It was then decided an air ambulance would be better and the patient would be collected from a suitable nearby landing site.
While he sympathised with the hard work of the St John volunteers, Gardner said he was worried the incident could be symptomatic of a stretched resource and he fears future delays could be more serious.
He said the wait, from the patient presenting to the ambulance arriving, was about two hours.
‘‘They try their hardest, but they just don’t have the numbers,’’ he said.
‘‘The country is desperately short of adequate volunteer numbers to staff our ambulance rosters. It’s worse in rural areas.’’
St John South Canterbury territory manager Darryn Grigsby said the response was swift and an air ambulance landed at Twizel at 12pm, having been dispatched from Dunedin at 10.52am.
He said it had investigated landing the helicopter closer to the patient, but it was deemed to be in the best interests of all parties to land on the designated helipad at the Twizel Medical Centre.
Once the decision to land the helicopter on the helipad had been made, St John sent an ambulance from Fairlie to transport the patient to the helipad.
The Fairlie-based ambulance was chosen as it was available and was able to reach Twizel at the same time as the helicopter, he said.
The ambulance arrived at Twizel at 12.09pm, meaning the patient did have to wait an extra nine minutes after the helicopter arrived.
St John had to consider best use of resources and sending an ambulance from Fairlie was the best choice as others were either unavailable or would have left locations under-resourced, he said.
Grigsby said St John has a team of 18 dedicated volunteers in the Twizel area who crew the frontline ambulance.
‘‘The Twizel area is serviced by ambulances from nearby districts such as Timaru, Fairlie, Geraldine, Omarama and Tekapo, rescue helicopter if deemed necessary, a manager in a response vehicle, and a Prime (Primary Response In a Medical Emergencies) doctor based in Twizel. St John also has a co-response agreement with Fire and Emergency New Zealand.
"St John acknowledges the crucial role volunteers play when it comes to delivering life-saving emergency and community services across the country. St John recognises that volunteer work is a big commitment and that volunteers often have other obligations and demands on their time,’’ he said.