Call to improve ambulances

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33981, 23 October 1975, Page 18

Call to improve ambulances

A visit to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., has left the chairman of the Fiordland Volunteer \mbulance Service (Mr R. S. Palmer) convinced that New Zealand's ambulance services need reorganisation. betterdesigned vehicles, more equipment, and bettertrained staff. Mr Palmer, who is based at Te Anau. said that New Zealand had a very poor road accident survival rate, and ; that twice as many New Zealanders died, per head of population, from road accidents as in the United States.

j; Skilled emergency care in New Zealand could save 80 J'per cent of the people who ‘(would normally die, if it the care provided by •the technician-ambulances 1 and para-medic programmes 1 in Maryland, Mr Palmer said.j Ambulances needed two or three fully-trained staff, able ' to cope with resuscitation, » and to administer intravenous ■ fluids. They also needed the means to defitrillate and telemeter. At all times ambulances i needed to be in direct radio I contact with the base hospi-'.j I tai. and preferably a doctor. ■ They needed equipment to; (photograph accident scenes,; - and the positions of patients; ..before they were moved. I:

No person untrained to; handle accident victims i should be allowed to put { them in private cars, and to i take them to hospitals, Mr! Palmer said. He suggested that training ; of New Zealand ambulance staff be improved, and that it include some clinical experience at a large teaching hospital. “Doctors and nurses are now beginning to realise that there is a need to work closely with ambulance staff in the best interests of the patient’s recovery,” he said.; “There is no doubt that the I .recovery of an accident victim of a 'sudden illness’ patient begins from the moIment of the accident Ambu-i

[lance staff are the first to bej involved. It is obviously no , •use having efficient wards fori, i emergency care at the hospital if the patient never gets:, there alive,” Mr Palmer said. , TIME PAST ’< The time was past when j i improvements in ambulance S services could be paid for by local communities. Also, am- ( balances no longer had vol-it untarv staff. The appropriate Govern- t ment department could [t quicklv initiate, and pay for. j improvements in New Zea- t (land’s ambulance services, he I said. Mr Palmer is preparing a < report, on his findings for am- f bulance and associated ser-lS i vices, 1