Ambulance changes

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 7

Ambulance changes

Ambulance activities at emergencies in outlying areas Of North Canterbury will now be co-ordinated by the St John Ambulance Association control room in Christchurch. Co-ordination of the work of ambulance services in North Canterbury has been association policy for the last three years. The secretary-trea-surer of the Canterbury and West Coast Centre (Mr J. R. M. Barker) said that it had become necessary because of the number of buses using main highways.

“The new scheme covers

each of the individual Operators in Cheviot, Amuri, and Kaikoura where they are fairly thin for ambulances,’’ Mr Barker said. “They could not cover a bus crash so we had. to arrange rapid coordination of back-up ambulance services.” Under the scheme, each area had its own plan for dealing with an emergency, but the first step was to get in touch with control in Christchurch, which would then regulate the dispatch of ambulances. “The co-ordination has the aim of keeping standards as high as possible,”

Mr Barker said, “but it is just part of an over-all coordination and standardisation of ambulances equipment, and training.” Similar schemes have been extended to the Ashburton and South Canterbury areas, and to the West Coast. The next stage, Mr Barker said, might be to standardise some of the St John equipment. The association’s annual report for 1979 says that four Bedford ambulances, able to carry two stretcher cases or nine seated passengers, were already in use. A fifth will be purchased soon.