AMBULANCE WANTED.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 10456, 10 December 1927, Page 9

AMBULANCE WANTED.

MOTOR VEHfCLE FOR ST. JOHN ASSOCIATION.

PUBLIC SHOULD PAY

Splendid work is being carried out locally by the Gisborne branch of tlie St. John Ambulance, but this is seriously handicapped by the fact that the branch has no motor ambulance.

In the course, of all address last evening Mr. A. W. Rrohert, Auckland district officer of the St. John Ambulance Association, referred to the work carried out in the past year by the St. John Associations motor anniblanee stationed at Auckland. In this period, the vehicle had carried G6l patients over a total distance of 5,308 miles. Their work had been recognised, too, in very substantial Fashion, by the Auckland Harbor Board, who were so pleased with the efficiencv of the service that they had decided‘to make a fixed annual donation on the condition that the ambulance and officers were available for accidents on the" wharves and the waterfront.. At the conclusion of, the address. Mr. 11. H. DeCosta inquired why the matter of a motqr ambulance for the Jo cal branch of St. .John, brought up 'some time ago, bad since been dropped. The chairman (Mr. A. Thomson) explained that the main trouble was lac-k of funds. They had decided that the. time was not opportune, but the proposal was only postponed and not dropped. Air. Probert then stated that the matter of providing an ambulance should lie with local organisations m the. town . He instanced the case of Whangarei where the sports bodies and the public had combined to purchase an ambulance and had then presented it to the local lira-neb of St John. “Surely the same thing could be done 111 Gisborne,” he remarked. “This is a matter of service to the public, who will thereby benefit extensively, and it is 011 I) fair that the public should share the cost.” '