Government will continue to increase funding<\/a> for ambulances.<\/p>\nCostello also said the ambulance hubs in Auckland would be a \u201cgame changer\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about having a base where the ambulances can be stopped, can be cleaned, maintained, and then sent out to work.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it creates some efficiencies for the staff themselves. So you don\u2019t lose your local capacity or your local stations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just this ability to centralise some of those really administrative functions so that there is real efficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Costello said it was about using the resources better to make the ambulance service as efficient as possible.<\/p>\n
Costello said that \u201cwell over 90% of the funding [for ambulances] is state\u201d, but there were some variables given St John\u2019s and Wellington Free Ambulance were their own entities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about the contribution that government makes. And to respect these organisations, they don\u2019t want to be government agencies. They do want this independence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Workers First Union and the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research have released a report on the state of the ambulance service, which found a wage gap between Australia and New Zealand, a drop in donations to St John, and pressures from the ongoing fuel crisis.<\/p>\n
The union\u2019s national ambulance organiser, Faye McCann, said the Government\u2019s announcement was welcome, but $35 million would be a \u201cBand-aid fix\u201d.<\/p>\n
McCann said the Government should fully fund ambulance operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just in this continuous cycle of needing top-ups from the Government for the ambulance service. That shouldn\u2019t be needed. The Government should be able to fund the ambulance service appropriately, so that we have an ambulance service we can rely on.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Green]()
Green Party MP Ricardo Menendez March. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n
Green Party MP Ricardo Menendez March said the \u201ctop up\u201d from the Government was a good start, but agreed with McCann that ambulances should be brought fully into the public healthcare system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an essential emergency healthcare system that is still reliant on donations. I don\u2019t think New Zealanders would accept other forms of essential healthcare being reliant on donations, and we shouldn\u2019t accept that for our ambulance services either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s health spokesperson, Dr Ayesha Verrall, said extra funding was better than nothing, but ambulance services would remain dependent on charity and part charges to stay afloat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to see how New Zealand First can claim to have delivered on their pre-election promise to fund 95% of St John\u2019s costs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe financial pressure on ambulances has pushed up the cost of a call out \u2013 it\u2019s now at $125 during a cost-of-living crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The funding will go towards: The establishment of two ambulance hubs in Auckland, with one confirmed for South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,64869,11428,696,11231,11357,2082,2518,2517,1132,111,43,139,69,1321],"class_list":["post-439699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-64869","tag-ambulance","tag-announced","tag-boost","tag-budget","tag-for","tag-green","tag-kate","tag-million","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439699","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=439699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}