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St John is relocating its Kaiwaka ambulance to Maungaturoto ahead of increasing its paid staff in the town from one to eight and introducing a 24/7 service.
A St John spokesperson says that because the majority of the ambulance volunteers in the area are based in Maungaturoto, it is hard to justify the operational expense of the Kaiwaka station.
“Functionally, nothing will change as they are already one operational group and share training nights,” he says. “If we base the vehicle in Maungaturoto, then three-quarters of the volunteers are nearby. It makes logistical sense.”
At any one time, two of the new paid staff will crew an ambulance, working a 48-hour shift every eight days.
St John says one of the Maungaturoto ambulances will eventually be replaced by a ‘first responder vehicle’.
“It will be equipped like an ambulance, but will be operated by volunteers. They will treat the patient in their home and might begin the transport to a hospital, but will be met by the ambulance, which will take the patient the rest of the way.
“Volunteers have told us that sometimes when they drive a patient to Whangarei they get drawn into doing two or three jobs up there, and not serving their own community. Changing to a first responder unit will solve this.”
St John says there is still a real need for volunteers in the area.
“There’s also no reason why the Kaiwaka staff can’t park the first response unit from the Maungaturoto station in their driveway if they are on duty. That goes for staff in Paparoa as well.”
Meanwhile, a public meeting was held earlier this month to determine a future use for the ambulance station once it is vacated.
St John were not able to say when the new arrangements will be put in place.
The Mahurangi Matters spoke to a number of residents in the Kaiwaka area and found that opinions about the changes are mixed.
Donald, from Topuni
Since the infrastructure is here, I think it should be utilised. This means that it is double the distance for an ambulance to travel if anything happens in Kaiwaka town. They would probably get here from Wellsford faster. The problem hasn’t been that there isn’t a need in the community, just that there aren’t enough drivers.
Heather, from Kaiwaka
The area is growing with talk of 700 new residents going into subdivisions around Oneriri Road and I think it’s ludicrous we would have no ambulance based here. If you had a heart attack around here, I believe you would be dead. It’s scary when there are a lot of retirees in the area. After all the fundraising that Kaiwaka has done for St John, it is a bit of a kick in the guts.
Bianca Hartley, from Kaiwaka
I think it is awful, but I have noticed that the Maungaturoto ambulance has been the first one to respond to incidents in the area for a while. It was obviously coming for some time, and if there’s a lack of volunteers this is what happens. But I’ve never heard of there being a call for volunteers and I’ve noticed the money from the community fundraising in Kaiwaka has gone to the Maungaturoto station.
Eric Jansseune, from Kaiwaka
I’m worried that 20 minutes from Maungaturoto is too long if the situation is an emergency. Nobody wants to need it, but help shouldn’t be further than five minutes away. In the year that I’ve lived in the area someone actually died from a medical emergency on the same street as the station. There’s no doctor in the town either, which is a concern.
