By Brook Sabin
New figures obtained by 3 News reveal more than half of all calls to 111 aren't genuine emergencies.
Many of them are being made by accident or even by children, frustrating essential services.
In extreme cases, one person rang to get a cockroach removed. Another wanted urgent repairs to a wedding dress.
More than two-million calls are made to 111 each year.
When a call to 111 is first made, it goes to a Telecom operator.
But 1.1 million made to the operator each year aren't genuine emergencies.
“It's people having phones in their handbags, kids playing on their phone, customers hanging up,” says Tania Shackleton of Telecom. “They're the main reasons.”
When the seemingly genuine calls are passed onto emergency services, the non-emergencies continue.
Police regularly have people asking for directions, to remove bugs. They've even had one women ask for urgent repairs to a wedding dress.
Today a person called in from overseas wanting to know if they could bring a knife into the country.
A number are also pranks.
“We actually send officers around to visit people in their homes and advise them on the consequences of continually making those prank calls,” says police communications centre national manager superintendent Andy McGregor.
The ambulance service also gets prank calls.
“If we can't work out it is a prank call, we actually have to send around an ambulance,” says St John ambulance operations director Michael Brooks. “We can't risk that. That's when we get an ambulance turn out and find out it's some kids playing or there's a phone off the hook at the phone booth.”
The plea from emergency services is to keep 111 for genuine emergencies.
Those who repeatedly ignore that risk prosecution.
3 News
source: newshub archive
