{"id":413341,"date":"2026-05-05T19:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/413341\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T19:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:31:12","slug":"ambulance-unions-say-extra-cleaning-duties-will-add-to-pressure-on-st-john-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/413341\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambulance unions say extra cleaning duties will add to pressure on St John staff"},"content":{"rendered":"

National secretary Mark Quin said the workload for ambulance staff had increased about 10% every year since Covid and now there is an expectation for them to clean the stations.<\/p>\n

He said the workers already cleaned the ambulances, frequently missed breaks, and underwent additional training in their spare time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s just another one they\u2019re lumping on to the pressures of operating on the road as an ambulance officer or a paramedic or a patient transfer officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

St John<\/a> said it hoped to redirect some of its spending on cleaning to areas such as building projects or buffering the impact of increased fuel costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not disagreeing with them, but don\u2019t take it out of an area that is effectively affecting the conditions that ambulance officers work in and, effectively, is an important support service to them doing their job,\u201d Quin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is the funding from Health New Zealand to fill in the gap? You don\u2019t see doctors and nurses cleaning up in the wards. They\u2019ve got planners for it in the hospitals. So why should ambulance officers and paramedics have to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FirstFirst Union’s Anita Rosentreter says St John’s money problems would be easily resolved if the Government fully funded it. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

Workers First Union<\/a> deputy secretary Anita Rosentreter feared the increased responsibility would ultimately delay emergency responses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst-case scenario is obviously going to be that, you know, you\u2019re waiting for an ambulance officer to attend to you or your partner in a medical emergency and there\u2019s a delay because they\u2019re rubber gloved up and cleaning a toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosentreter said she understood the frequency of deep cleans at stations would be reduced to once every quarter.<\/p>\n

She said it showed St John was in a dire situation which would be \u201cquite easily resolved if [the Government] just funded the ambulance service 100%\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere shouldn\u2019t be a question around whether or not they get to spend money on cleaning their toilets or repairing their buildings or paying the wages of their paramedics,\u201d Rosentreter said.<\/p>\n

Cockburn said St John was always looking for opportunities to ensure its spending was focused on frontline service delivery.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intend to work through an approach to this over the coming weeks, which involves discussion with union representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise the demands on our people and any potential changes will sit within normal workflows, without impacting frontline response or patient care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan Dunn is a multimedia reporter based in Auckland with a focus on crime, social issues, policing and local issues. He joined Newstalk ZB in 2024 from Radio New Zealand, where he started as an intern out of the New Zealand Broadcasting School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National secretary Mark Quin said the workload for ambulance staff had increased about 10% every year since Covid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3225,25638,3017,11428,52132,802,155366,27308,679,5126,130,111,43,139,69,90,4989,2171,21411,18661,52084,5659,11420,1516,12418,9100,61,19062,1533,102,4576,4478],"class_list":["post-413341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-according","tag-add","tag-ahead","tag-ambulance","tag-cleaning","tag-costs","tag-duties","tag-extra","tag-forced","tag-john","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-organisation","tag-plans","tag-pressure","tag-pushes","tag-representing","tag-say","tag-st","tag-staff","tag-stations","tag-such","tag-to","tag-unions","tag-will","tag-with","tag-work","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}