St John training praised

Press, 18 March 1983, Page 28

St John training praised

St John Ambulance volunteer training is better in New Zealand than in Britain, said the chief commander of Britain’s St John Ambulance, Major-General P. R. Leuchars. General Leuchars was in Christchurch as part of a three-week tour of New Zealand St John Ambulance services.

“I am interested in how they manage to get their volunteers up to a higher standard than ours,” said General Leuchars. St John Ambulance also had a better public image in

New Zealand than in Britain.

“This is almost certainly by virtue of the fact that it provides a full-time ambulance service,” he said.

It would be a retrograde step for that service to be taken over and run by the State, as it was in Britain. He expected a current study of St John Ambulance in Britain to find that the organisation should run a small ambulance service there.

Two services in Britain not offered in New Zealand were air transport for patients and network of vol-

unteer pilots who airfreighted organs needed for transplant throughout Britain and Europe. . Part of his job was to make two tours annually to St John Ambulance organisations in different parts of the world to discuss different services and methods being tried.

It was his first visit to New Zealand, and he was most interested in the way volunteers here worked with people in full-time service. “This is unique,” he said. Apart from grants from the Government and the Accident Compensation Cor-

poration, St John Ambulance in New Zealand had to rely on the public for financial support. General Leuchars favoured public appeals for raising money. “It is their service; they should be given an opportunity to contribute towards it,” he said. After spending two weeks touring the North Island, General Leuchars has spent the last two days visiting St John Ambulance sub-centres in Canterbury. He will travel to Queenstown today before going on to Invercargill and Dunedin.