Ambulance Association Resists Cut In Aid

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30454, 30 May 1964, Page 14

Ambulance Association Resists Cut In Aid

Stiff opposition by the St. John Ambulance Association to any rise in the scale charges, which determine the association’s share in the cost of certain ambulance calls, is likely to be voiced when association representatives meet representatives of the North Canterbury Hospital Board on Wednesday. The meeting has been called by the hospital board after a request by the Ambulance Transport Advisory Board for suggestions for amending existing ambulance service subsidies. One suggestion of the advisory board is that, as scale charges have remained : ‘. - tic since 1956, consideration should be given to raising them. The scale charges apply to “category C” calls on ambulances. These include the transport of a patient to hospital from his home or from an accident, and his return home from hospital. The ambulance operator has to provide the scale charge, plus an amount assessed by the Government; the Government finds the rest, through the hospital board. Last year, the total cost of category C journeys in Christchurch ambulances of the association was £9820: of this, the association had to find £4779 in scale charges plus a cash amount of £7OO, leaving the Government to provide £4341. It is open to the association to charge patients for

the service to the extent of the scale charge; but this, the association, as a matter of national policy, refuses to do, sending out instead requests for financial help to those who have been carried and relying on its supporters to make up for those who do not pay—and only about onethird do pay. The Wellington Free Ambulance Association relies entirely on public (' to provide the scale charges. In centres where no voluntary ambulance service operates, the hospital boards run these services and send out accounts for the scale charges to the patients carried. Never Happened Asked what would happen if any ambulance organisation could not find its share of the cost, the secretary of the Christchurch sub-centre of the St. John Ambulance Association (Mr G. A. Brown) said as far as he knew this had never happened, but his Sub-centre was “heading for that state now.” He had been told the Wellington Free Ambulance Association was “finding things even harder.” Asked whether the St. John association might consider charging patients if the scale charge was raised, Mr Brown said he thought this would not make much difference. “I guarantee the hospital boards who run ambulances don’t collect 50 per cent of the charges they make,” he said “I guarantee they send out half a dozen bills and then forget it. They won't take you to court for 12s 6d. It would be very interesting to

know exactly how they do get on. I don’t know, because the Health Department doesn’t publish any figures. “The present system guarantees the Government the scale charges if a voluntary body runs the ambulances. If a hospital board runs them, and the board can’t collect the scale charges, the Government has to find the difference.” Reclassification Other changes the association will press for include the reclassification of certain category B and C services into category A. Category B services are those in which the association has to find the whole cost of the service (as in attendance at sports events, or transport at the request of the user); category A covers services where the Government pays the whole cost, principally where the service is provided at the request of a hospital board. One of the services the association particularly wants reclassified is the transport of a bed-ridden person from the home of one relative to the home of another. The association believes that, as the relatives are, in effect, keeping someone out of hospital, such costs as transport should be borne by the Government. One cause of general dissatisfaction is the system of working out costs and the Government contribution to the finances of the voluntary organisations. This will be discussed and suggestions for improvement will probably be submitted to the advisory committee.