St John New Zealand



St John New Zealand (also often referred to as St John Ambulance of New Zealand) is a charitable organisation providing healthcare services to New Zealand. Services include emergency and non-emergency ambulance treatment and transport, first aid training, and first aid supplies. The organisation is funded by Ministry of Health and District Health Board funds (via ambulance service contracts), ACC levies, part and full charges to patients, plus donations and fundraising.

History
A branch of the St John Ambulance was first founded in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1885. Further branches quickly spread across the country providing first aid and patient transport and in 1945, due to the efforts of St John in New Zealand during the Second World War, the organisation was elevated to a full Priory, with the Governor-General of New Zealand as the Prior.

During the 1970s and 1980s much restructuring took place in response to changing social and economic conditions, moving away from the traditional militaristic structure and resulting in the current modern organisation.

Today, St John New Zealand is a major health service provider in New Zealand. They provide around 85% of the emergency and non-emergency ambulance cover for the New Zealand population, emergency care and first aid at public events, support phonelines for the elderly and house-bound, hospital patient transport, public first aid training, health products and a youth programme.

Statistics
The organisation treated or transported 308,609 patients in the year ending 30 June 2006, attending 207,482 separate incidents. The 535 ambulances or operational vehicles (based at 184 stations) covered over 13 million kilometres in the same time.

Issues
St John has reported that funding issues and problems with staffing have dangerously increased the number of single-person ambulance call-outs, mainly but not only in rural areas. Normally, two staff (one mainly acting as driver, and one advanced paramedic) are considered the only safe solution both for patient and staff safety. St John have noted that the issue could be fixed for about NZ$ 5 million per year, but Ministry of Health officials have noted that they consider some two-person-callouts as an inefficient use of resources.