{"id":578821,"date":"2026-08-24T13:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T13:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578821\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T13:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T13:12:10","slug":"former-paramedics-called-back-to-help-with-exceptional-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/578821\/","title":{"rendered":"Former paramedics called back to help with ‘exceptional’ demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former St John paramedics now working in other parts of the organisation are being asked to jump back into ambulances to meet “exceptional” demand.<\/a><\/p>\n

By Kate Green of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

Hato Hone St John received 16,794 calls through 111 for the week ending August 23, another all-time high<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new daily record of 2606 calls was set on Friday, August 14, compared with an average of 2061 a day last August.<\/p>\n

Hato Hone St John director of ambulance operations Doug Gallagher said the sustained workload was having an impact.<\/p>\n

“Our people have been working through exceptional demand for more than two weeks,” he said.<\/p>\n

“They continue to do an outstanding job, but repeated high-workload shifts, winter illness affecting our people and their dependants, and pressure across the health system are taking a toll.”<\/p>\n

Some staff who held ambulance or clinical qualifications \u2013 but were now working in education, leadership or other non-patient-facing roles \u2013 were stepping up to work in frontline operations, he said.<\/p>\n

The organisation’s major incident arrangements remained in place, providing national oversight of demand, ambulance availability, workforce capacity and patient-safety risks.<\/p>\n

Some of the greatest pressure was in Auckland,<\/a> he said, particularly during the evening and overnight.<\/p>\n

Ambulance crews have been experiencing delays with handing over patients at hospital emergency departments, particularly in the largest cities including Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North and Christchurch.<\/p>\n

Patients continued to be prioritised according to clinical need. However, during the most intense periods, some patients assessed as time-critical might wait longer than Hato Hone St John would want.<\/p>\n

People should still call 111 when there was a threat to life, he said.<\/p>\n

“Please do not delay calling in an emergency. If the patient’s condition worsens after calling 111, call again and tell us what has changed.<\/p>\n

“We also ask everyone to treat our call handlers, dispatchers, clinicians and ambulance crews with patience and respect. They are working incredibly hard to help patients and communities.”<\/p>\n

111 calls for an ambulance each day last week<\/p>\n

– Monday, August 17: 2385<\/p>\n

– Tuesday, August 18: 2511<\/p>\n

– Wednesday, August 19: 2374<\/p>\n

– Thursday, August 20: 2419<\/p>\n

– Friday, August 21: 2368<\/p>\n

– Saturday, August 22: 2383<\/p>\n

– Sunday, August 23: 2354.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former St John paramedics now working in other parts of the organisation are being asked to jump back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,134,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-578821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578821","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=578821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}