“Alarming” Failure To Pay For Ambulances

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30399, 25 March 1964, Page 1

“Alarming” Failure To Pay For Ambulances

It was alarming that only about one-third of ambulanceusers contributed anything towards the cost of the use of the ambulance, said Mr J. H. Skinner, chairman of the Christchurch Sub-centre of the St. John Ambulance Association, last evening.

Speaking at the sub-centre’s annual meeting, Mr Skinner said that a total of £5500 had to be collected from someone each year, and that sum was increasing. That was why it was necessary to ask those taken to hospital by ambulance from their homes or from accidents to contribute to the cost. Mr Skinner said the association seemed to be short each year by upwards of £2OOO. “It is quite frankly very

difficult to understand the attitude of people who expect all that St. John gives and are not prepared to make any donation towards the costs,” he said. Three Categories Mr Skinner said all ambulance operations were divided into three categories. Category A was a direct charge on the North Canterbury Hospital Board because it covered mainly transfers to hospitals within its jurisdiction and specialised outpatient treatment.

Category B was transport at personal request to private homes and private hospitals, and standby services for sports and race meetings. The whole cost of that category had to be recovered. For the last year the cost of that work had been £llOO and the association was able to recover £1067, which was an improvement on the previous year’s figure of £962 with £795 recovered.

Category C covered transport of patients from home to hospital and from the scene of an accident to hospital. That cost had to be found up to a prescribed scale laid down by the Governmentappointed Ambulance Advisory Board. The scale charge for 1963 came to £4500, and although the additional sum the association had to find had not yet been decided, it would appear to be upwards of £lOOO. Mr Skinner said the difference between the total charges under categories B and C and

the actual operating cost was met by a subsidy paid through the hospital board. If the association could not collect according to the scale it had to produce the difference from some other source of revenue.

Wellington Service “There has been talk,” he said, “of a free ambulance along the lines of that operating in Wellington, but it should be pointed out that this service in Wellington is only free to the users because all outgoings are met by local bodies. Their income from local bodies and the Wellington Hospital Board over and above category. A debits amounted in total to nearly £24.000 for both 1962 and 1963. “If local bodies here in Christchurch had given us £5500 in 1963, we also could have operated an alleged free ambulance, and it must be borne in mind that this then becomes free to the user because the ratepayers are meeting the cost. In other words there cannot be any such thing as a free ambulance because somebody has to meet the outgoings. Local Finance “Now, coming to finance requirements in our own area, as was shown earlier, we have to collect a minimum of £4500 from ambulance users. We need over and above that, say £lOOO as our voluntary contribution towards ambulance cost, £2500 for the brigade, and approximately £2OOO for our own general purposes. This means that in all we have to collect a minimum of £5500 a year over and above the amount which has to be collected for ambulance usage. “Towards the end of last year I personally signed over 7000 letters which were sent, along with explanatory' brochures, to the business and professional community of Christchurch soliciting support, and to date only 424 have responded and collectively have given us a sum of £1220 18s.

“It would appear, then, that only about one-fifteenth of the people reached consider the work of St. John warrants a donation, and if you extend that further to the fact that only one-third of the users of ambulances are prepared to pay anything towards their costs, it really makes one wonder what has happened to the people of Christchurch.” Dr. I. C. Macintyre said he had come across a number of persons who could well afford to pay for the ambulance service they had received, but when he suggested a contribution they said they had not given it a thought. Mr Skinner said notes were sent out to those who had been carried in ambulances, telling them of the cost and suggesting a contribution. He said the over-all cost of running a vehicle was 5s a mile.

This seemed high but it had to cover the cost of running heavy vehicles and of keeping staff on duty at all times.