Ōmārama residents are concerned they are not receiving timely medical care and they want change.
Photo: RNZ / Simon Rogers
The nearest ambulance is 30 kilometres away in Twizel, but the town has a group of trained first responder volunteers and an agreement with St John that it would be dispatched to relevant medical calls.
But residents say the first responders often are not called out when they should be, and it has prompted a community meeting to make their voices heard.
Boots and Jandals Hotel owner operator Bruce Dyson was in the Ōmārama Volunteer Fire Brigade First Response unit for more than a decade.
Patients were forced to wait for care if the unit was not dispatched, he said.
"Twizel's probably a good 25-30 minutes and then Kurow could be up to 40 minutes away, and if those two aren't available, you're talking Ōamaru or Waimate which is a good hour and a quarter, hour and twenty.
"There have been a few cases where people have had to wait for that long."
The Fire and Emergency first response unit is dispatched to relevant medical events by St John under an enhanced response trial that started in 2017.
That trial means they can be called to attend more medical emergencies than most other first response brigades.
The Boots and Jandals Hotel has made three medical calls in the past 10 months when the local first response unit was not called to assist.
One of those times a bar manager waited more than an hour for an ambulance after someone fell over outside a nearby hotel.
Dyson said the first response unit - which is trained by St John - could get there a lot quicker.
"In town, you're talking three to five minutes, and outside - the rural areas - it depends how far they have to travel.
"So it's reassurance for the people who could be on the end of the phone or (distressed family), it's reassurance for them and it's reassurance for the patient."
They just wanted to serve their community and support St John, he said.
Ōmārama First Response Trust trustee Craig Dawson said the first response unit was set up so they could give patients the right support while they waited for an ambulance.
Timely medical care and being able to triage someone in person instead of over the phone could make a big difference, he said.
"What we've found in recent is we're just not getting called out to these calls, which can be potentially dangerous.
"I'm sure whether you've been in a situation where you've had to ring because you're feeling unwell or you've had an accident. But most people understate it, they don't want to be a nuisance, and there in lies the problem."
The community especially older people needed reassurance they could get medical assistance in a timely manner, he said.
"I think that if you live in a community and you have willing people who are highly trained with good equipment, why not use them?
"It doesn't cost St John anything for us to attend. We don't send them a bill or anything like that. We simply just go out and do the job."
He wanted a new and enforced Memorandum of Understanding between St John and Fire and Emergency that meant the first response unit was called to all medical events and accidents.
Fire and Emergency Otago district manager Phil Marsh said the issue was on his radar.
It was St John's responsibility to assess each medical call and decide whether to dispatch the first response unit, he said.
"We don't want to give an illusion of things that we're not actually supposed to be doing.
"We line up with the Memorandum of Understanding and the enhanced trial, and that's where we have to stick to.
"We can't just go to everything unannounced or uninvited. We have to be working under that clinical governance."
The local fire brigade received 93 calls within 12 months to 31 July, 41 were medical.
The current Memorandum of Understanding has guidelines that dictate when the unit can be dispatched.
"For all incidents classified as Purple or Red - so that's cardiac or respiratory arrest or serious major life-threatening incidents where we can arrive ahead of an ambulance resource, and for Orange incidents or Orange 1 incidents where the first responder skill-set may make a positive difference to patient outcome."
St John rural Otago area operations manager David Milne said nothing has changed to the partnership with Fire and Emergency.
"St John is aware of the Ōmārama community's concerns but would like to again reassure them that the Fenz first response brigade is and will continue to be dispatched by St John Ambulance to all relevant medical incidents," Milne said.
He said the past 12 months of incident data showed no overall increasing or decreasing trend for the Ōmārama community with the brigade being dispatched to four calls per month.
Three of those fit under the typical First Response Unit and about one per month fell under the enhanced trial criteria.
"It is also worth noting that there are certain incidents where we will actively not request a Fenz response from Ōmārama.
"For example, when the patient requests the brigade is not activated (as patients have the right to do this under the HDC Code of Rights) and when there is a health professional on scene and they request the brigade is not activated because there is sufficient skill already on scene."
St John continually reviewed the way they worked together to ensure resources were allocated appropriately. but noted the ambulance service was experiencing extremely high demand across the country, he said.
The community meeting will be held at 11am on Saturday at the Ōmārama Memorial Hall with St John and Fire and Emergency both confirming they will attend.