Emergency Medical Services in New Zealand - Organization

Organization

Since the age of the motor vehicle many Hospital Boards ran their own services. From 1957 – 1990 the Hospital Act stipulated that Hospital Boards had to provide an ambulance service. Many contracted that out to St John or had ad hoc arrangements with them, often for after hours staffing. When the Hospital Act was replaced by Health Boards, many of these Boards saw this as a chance to avoid being responsible and subsequently St John took over from many Boards (e.g. Thames, Bay of Plenty, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Waipawa, Dannevirke, Nelson, West Coast, Ashburton, Southland). Marlborough stayed a Hospital based service until 2007 and Taranaki until 2011. Wairarapa was the last region with a hospital-based service, ceasing in March 2012 and being taken over by Wellington Free Ambulance.

While both land ambulance service providers do have paid staff, they also rely very heavily on volunteer members. In most cases, paid staff tend to be concentrated in urban areas and in the management of rural areas, with rural response staff being largely volunteer-based. St. John Ambulance reports a total of 2,211 paid staff in New Zealand, supplemented by 7,647 volunteers. By contrast, Wellington Free Ambulance currently staffs 108 paid paramedics and 35 volunteers, not including the 21 paid staff and 21 auxiliary (volunteer) staff previously from the Wairarapa DHB service.