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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Simon Barnett and James Daniels Afternoons

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Speaker 1: podcast from News Talk.

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Speaker 2: ZEDB so Saint John staff, some of which are on

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Speaker 2: strike even as we speak over this funding issue and

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Speaker 2: the shortfall and funding and it does seem as I

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Speaker 2: use the word hotchpotch because it just seems weird that

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Speaker 2: they have to do, you know, jump through so many

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Speaker 2: hoops to try and get the money to run their service.

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Speaker 2: Eighty three percent is funded by the government and then

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Speaker 2: of course they have to rely on donations, fundraising and

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Speaker 2: other parts patient part charges to make up the funding shortfall.

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Speaker 2: So we've got a very interesting call come in a

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Speaker 2: couple of minutes ago from Mark Quinn. And Mark is

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Speaker 2: the executive chair of the New Zealand Ambulance Association and

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Speaker 2: he joins us now Mark, good afternoon and thanks for

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Speaker 2: calling up.

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Speaker 3: Good afternoon sir, and yes, so it's just happened to

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Speaker 3: be listening to the show and I have heard the

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Speaker 3: conversations going on.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's great to thank you for calling, so the

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Speaker 2: executive chair of the New Zealand Ambulance Association. So you

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Speaker 2: all know has the government actually offered Saint John one

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Speaker 2: hundred percent funding.

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Speaker 3: No, not not what I believe at the moment. They

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Speaker 3: have not and they are quite true that the current

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Speaker 3: contract which they are halfway through, was based on an

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Speaker 3: eighty three percent funding when the contract went in, and

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Speaker 3: they're quite right that the contract still has two years

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Speaker 3: or just under two years to go, right.

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Speaker 4: Is it a contestable contract, like can other people contest it?

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Speaker 3: Yes, certainly I know that in previous with patient transport Services,

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Speaker 3: which is part of that contract in a sense, and

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Speaker 3: the staff sit under our collective that has been contested

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Speaker 3: that that part of it. So there is nothing to

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Speaker 3: stop another competitor coming in. But because of the infrastructure

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Speaker 3: and the logistics of it, that is the challenge.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So we've sort of heard from a couple of

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Speaker 2: callers Mark that this is actually a staush between staff

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Speaker 2: and management at Saint John, not the government at all.

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Speaker 2: Is that true?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, It's it's not as simple as that.

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Speaker 3: It is complex in the sense that the funding comes

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Speaker 3: through Health New Zealand, through Saint John, you know, to

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Speaker 3: run the ambulance services, and so that the trouble is

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Speaker 3: at the moment is that unlike the fire and the police,

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Speaker 3: you know, you've got a third party involved in that,

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Speaker 3: and that's the complication here, particularly when you're trying to

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Speaker 3: unearth the truth around where the money is, the funding

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Speaker 3: and where the money goes.

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Speaker 4: So why don't we just cut out that layer of

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Speaker 4: Saint John and just have Health New Zealand running it?

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Speaker 5: So good question, So you know it doesn't you know, Saint.

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Speaker 3: John have been very very good at running an ambulance

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Speaker 3: service in terms of the clinical care and the skills

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Speaker 3: and how they've delivered them, and they would it. You know,

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Speaker 3: based on the clinical perspective, it's very ranked, very highly

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Speaker 3: amongst ambulance services across the world.

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Speaker 5: So I don't think people should not forget that.

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Speaker 3: They've been very good in delivering that that aspect of it,

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Speaker 3: and the key to the people it's around this is

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Speaker 3: around the funding and resources to continue.

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Speaker 5: That level of clinical care.

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Speaker 3: And you know, like I said just mentioned earlier, the

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Speaker 3: logistics and doing the having the infrastructure to run an

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Speaker 3: ambulant services not as straightforward because many of the ambulance

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Speaker 3: stations are tied up with what we call area committees,

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Speaker 3: which are separate from running from the ambulance operations.

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Speaker 5: So it's it's a very complicated.

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Speaker 3: Model organization in that sense, and you look at an

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Speaker 3: ambulance station and think, well, saying John owns it.

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Speaker 5: Well, no, it's not.

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Speaker 3: Quite straightforward because some of those inlets stations are leased

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Speaker 3: and some of them are owned by area committee. So

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Speaker 3: it's not as straightforward as that.

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Speaker 2: Right is it about pay to some extent mark you

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Speaker 2: talked about this extremely high level of clinical care second

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Speaker 2: to none basically in the world that comes at a

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Speaker 2: cost are some of our paramedics and that is that

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Speaker 2: is that we're a little bit of the problem lies here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the history, the short history lesson is that you know, say,

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Speaker 3: you know, originally our ambulance service is going back, you

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Speaker 3: know the fifty sixties were based out of hospitals and

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Speaker 3: what's happened over what's transitioned over a period of time,

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Speaker 3: is that Saint John is you know what for a

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Speaker 3: better We're brought out or taken over the emblance services

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Speaker 3: respectively by the what was then individual hospitals and then

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Speaker 3: dhpe's the last one being Taranaki that was running their

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Speaker 3: own ambulance service and leaving only Wellington Free Separate is

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Speaker 3: the only other ambulance service.

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Speaker 5: In New Zealand and so they've along the way. It's

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Speaker 5: certainly the.

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Speaker 3: Training and education of ambulance officers and communications staff along

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Speaker 3: the way has increased.

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Speaker 5: It's come so more complex and skilled. It's hard to.

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Speaker 3: Define totally in this format, you know, on a radio station.

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Speaker 3: But you know we've gone from being where Saint John

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Speaker 3: did all the training to now being degree based, which

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Speaker 3: is similar to being a doctor and being a nurse

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Speaker 3: or being a social worker.

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Speaker 5: And that's where we've moved to it.

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Speaker 3: And so you know, the delivery of care has reached

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Speaker 3: a highest standard than ever before. And this is where

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Speaker 3: you'll see slogans and you'll see staff talking about being

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Speaker 3: valued because it's not been recognized and that is the

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Speaker 3: issue here at the moment.

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Speaker 2: And would that be one problem they would argue with

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Speaker 2: the one hundred percent funding from the government, they would

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Speaker 2: wouldn't get those services or talents ever recognized if it

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Speaker 2: was government owned always because you'd always have your hand out.

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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean noting that the police and fire

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Speaker 3: have had their own problems. Yes, party, I'm not you know,

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Speaker 3: no one's saying you know that, can they be easy

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Speaker 3: look at the fence and say that it looks better,

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Speaker 3: But they've had their own issues. So that's what I'm saying,

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Speaker 3: I would try to be balanced about it, is that

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Speaker 3: the funding is the key to the issue. And that's

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Speaker 3: the trouble here at the moment is that Saint John

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Speaker 3: is now saying, and they've been saying since February, we

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Speaker 3: need one hundred percent funding. And we can argue about

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Speaker 3: you know, should have Saint John been telegraphing this a

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Speaker 3: lot earlier, and from a union perspective, we've been saying

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Speaker 3: for years you probably should have been doing but they haven't,

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Speaker 3: and now they're asking for the one hundred percent funding

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Speaker 3: and you know, the timing is not well considering what's

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Speaker 3: happening in the wider health spectrum.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, very interesting. Just before you go too, Mark, you

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Speaker 2: might be able to shed some light on this. There's

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Speaker 2: a person that says they work for Saint John. That's

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Speaker 2: text in saying Sint John does ten percent of the

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Speaker 2: health work in New Zealand for two percent of the

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Speaker 2: health budget. This is one reason the government's happy to

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Speaker 2: fund Saint John and not take it over fully. Is

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Speaker 2: that true? Does it do ten percent of the health work?

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Speaker 3: I can't tell you these percentos, but what I can

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Speaker 3: tell you is that the amblance services you know, both metropolitan,

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Speaker 3: provincial and rural, are sometimes the only medical resource in

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Speaker 3: that area and particularly after the weekend, after hours and

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Speaker 3: weekends that they can access. And what is when I

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Speaker 3: said to you earlier about the increasing skills, what has

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Speaker 3: happened is the ambinance offices traditionally in years gone by

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Speaker 3: and just would attend emergencies and car accidents, you know,

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Speaker 3: and heart attacks. Now they're attending a lot more psychiatric incidents.

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Speaker 3: They are attending incidents that are more around social welfare.

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Speaker 3: They are attending incidents that are I would argue at

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Speaker 3: times that we are not being best well trained for

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Speaker 3: even with through the tudiaries.

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Speaker 5: And we've been asking you know, I've been asked myself.

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Speaker 3: When I work in the road to go and do

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Speaker 3: search and rescue looking for someone wandering up and down

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Speaker 3: the road. So because there are no police available to

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Speaker 3: do this, and sometimes we've been called increasingly because there

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Speaker 3: is no police in the situations we shouldn't be doing.

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Speaker 2: It's very interesting getting your perspective, Mark, and I think

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Speaker 2: you were very fear and balance and what you said

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Speaker 2: really appreciate your calling.

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Speaker 5: Up A nice time to you. Thank you for the time.

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Speaker 2: Thank you Mark Quinn, Executive Chair of New Zealand Ambulance Association.

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