EMERGENCY REGULATIONS

Evening Star, Issue 23908, 11 June 1941, Page 8

EMERGENCY REGULATIONS

AUXILIARY AMBULANCE UNIT One of the most important innovations in connection with the Emergency Precautions Scheme is the provision of an auxiliary unit to the St. John Ambulance activities. A start has been made in this connection in Dunedin, the first business concern to come under notice as assisting being the Sanitarium Health Food Company, which has equipped one of its delivery vans as an auxiliary ambulance which can be ready for use in emergency within five minutes. The equipment is extremely simple, consisting of four brackets which can be speedily bolted into place and which form the supports for four regulation stretchers. A ‘ Star ’ reporter who viewed the van this morning was impressed with the practical possibilities in the idea. The Sanitarium Health Food Company now has 14 vans similarly equipped in various parts of the_ Dominion, and will shortly be replacing the four-stretcher vehicle in Dunedin with one fitted to carry six stretchers. It is hoped and expected that other local firms which possess suitable typos of motor vans will have them fitted in a similar way. It may be added that New South Wales, South Australia, and Queensland have adopted this idea as part of their emergency scheme, and a timetest carried out in those centres showed that the fitting of the brackets and stretchers could be done in 60 seconds.