Use Of Wheelchair Ambulance

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31983, 9 May 1969, Page 12

Use Of Wheelchair Ambulance

The St John Ambulance Association would have a strike on its hands if the wheelchair ambulance were used to transport wheelchair patients to hospitals for treatment, the association’s secretary - treasurer (Mr G. A. Brown) said last evening. The New Zealand preoccupation with unions would preclude such a thing, he told a meeting of the Christchurch Co-ordinating Council for the Handicapped. The wheelchair vehicle, especially designed to transport wheelchair patients in their wheelchairs, was available for transport to meetings . or for pleasure trips only and was manned by I

voluntary drivers, Mr Brown said.

There was another vehicle in Christchurch, a mini-bus owned by the North Canterbury Hospital Board, which was also capable of carrying patients in their chairs,.but it was also available only for pleasure trips and interhospital transport, There was no provision to pick up wheelchair patients at their homes and transport them to hospital other than the stretcher ambulances. “All of our full-time drivers are members of a union and part of their duties includes providing transport to hospital for these patients. The only way this can be done is by transferring the patient from his wheel-chair to a stretcher at his home and reversing the process at the hospital. , “Even so, if the wheel-. vehicle was used-for

this type of transport, the drivers would feel they were being done out of a job,” he said.

“It may seem silly that I can go to the pictures in the comfort of my own wheelchair, yet if 1 want to go and have my tooth out I must be transferred to a stretcher ambulance, but that is the case,” he said. The drivers felt that if the vehicle was run in the name of the association and under the St John insignia, they should be doing the driving, said Mr Brown. The inaccessibility of lavatories at the Christchurch Railway Station to handicapped persons, especially those in wheel-chairs, was again discussed. The council had previously Written to the Railways Department about the matter. A survey:made later by a member.of the council had shown

that, although ramps were: provided to give access to the; main platform, there were! 200 steps from the car-park to; the middle of the platform.

The door to the women’s lavatories was too narrow to allow a wheel-chair through and the long set of steps to the men’s lavatories precluded those confined to wheel-chairs and made it difficult for those on crutches or wearing calipers, the meeting was told.

Inquiries had shown that porters would be available to give assistance to the handicapped if the department was previously notified. •It was decided that the architectural barriers committee wpuld investigate. This committee will also conduct a survey of facilities for disabled persons at public buildings such as libraries. i