An emergency St John call handler is pleading with the New Zealand public to "be kind" as some ambulance wait times balloon to up to 10 hours amid "excessive demand".
Several emergency departments (EDs) around New Zealand are operating over capacity as winter illnesses continue to overwhelm hospitals.
"Our winter workload peak has escalated rapidly at a level we haven't seen before," St John ambulance operations deputy CEO Dan Ohs said.
EMD call handler for the Northern Region Jamie, who wished to remain anonymous so we have not used his real name, has been working for St John for the past couple of years but says recently the demand has skyrocketed.
He told Newshub more needs to be said about "what's actually going on".
"I have read numerous news articles about the excessive demand St John is currently facing, and I'm extremely annoyed (trying to be polite) about the fact that it has been said that there may be a delay of around three hours to get to our patients. In reality, I'd be pretty impressed if we got to our patients within three hours."
Jamie said delays of five hours are becoming "more frequent" and the waits have, at times, reached up to 10-11 hours long. However, he did assure these were to non-life-threatening call outs.
"It is mentally draining having to apologise all the time about the delays when calling back every half hour (when we aren't run off our feet answering 111 calls), none of us like seeing our patients waiting this long.
"Unfortunately we can't work on a first come - first serve basis, if someone's life is in immediate danger and you're laying on the ground with a broken arm, and we have no other ambulances available apart from the one responding to you, unfortunately, you're going to have to wait longer.
"Imagine the uproar if we sent an ambulance to someone who'd been waiting five hours with a broken arm, instead of the patient a few kilometres away who isn't breathing, a situation where 30 seconds can be the difference between living and dying."
Jamie issued a plea to Kiwis to "be kind" to call handlers and responding ambulance crews.
"We cop plenty of abuse as it is already, and we don't need any more of it. We may have just finished a job where we've dealt with a child who has passed away, obviously unbeknown to you, and you're abusing us because your family member has been waiting a few hours on the floor, but not in immediate danger of losing their life."
St John's general manager of ambulance communications Katy Wilkinson said they are currently experiencing "extremely high demand" for ambulance services around New Zealand at the moment.
"Current call volumes into our 111 Communications Centres well above what we would expect during this period. Last week, we received 1300 more 111 calls (an 11 percent increase) and 700 more ambulance responses (7 percent increase) than expected for this time of year."
She said most calls (85 percent) have been answered within their target time of 15 seconds.
"This increased demand is impacting heavily on both our call handlers and dispatchers and our ability to respond emergency ambulances. We acknowledge that these are challenging times for our people, and those in wider health, and we are incredibly proud of the amazing work they continue to deliver every day.
"In terms of ambulance response times, the average ambulance response to life-threatening, time-critical calls yesterday was 10 minutes. The average response time for lower acuity orange and green incidents was 41.1 minutes."
Wilkinson noted on average, 93 percent of patients receive an ambulance response within 30 minutes, but there are some "isolated instances due to extenuating circumstances" where some non-life-threatening patients have had to wait for extremely long periods for an ambulance.
"We are asking people to only call 111 for genuine emergencies and, to help lessen the demand, if you are feeling unwell, or need health advice, we ask you to call your regular health provider or Healthline and consider alternate methods of transport to medical facilities for non-urgent conditions.
"If it is an emergency, people should continue to dial 111 for an ambulance, being mindful that if their condition is not immediately life threatening, there may be a significant delay in s responding ambulance."
