Rāwene's St John Ambulance station has been unmanned for the past two months, a long-serving volunteer says. Photo: RNZ/ Peter de Graaf
The downgrading of a rural Northland hospital to a medical clinic is putting huge strain on front-line ambulance services across the district, a former St John volunteer says.
Denis Orme said Rāwene Hospital, in South Hokianga, became a clinic last year when a shortage of health professionals meant the wards could no longer be staffed by a doctor overnight.
That had serious flow-on effects for ambulance services as far away as the Bay of Islands, he said.
The sickest patients in Rāwene now had to be transferred, usually to Whangārei Hospital - a drive of about 130km each way.
Orme said transfers between hospitals could be carried out by patient transfer vehicles with a single driver.
The former Rāwene Hospital, now a medical clinic operated by Hauora Hokianga. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
However, under current rules, transfers between a medical clinic and a hospital - such as between Rāwene and Whangārei - had to be done by a double-crewed front-line ambulance.
Orme said such ambulances had to come from Kaikohe, Kerikeri or Kawakawa, which meant each ambulance was tied up for around five hours at a time.
Those ambulances were then unavailable for emergency callouts elsewhere in the district, putting extra strain on an already stretched service.
As a result it was "not untypical" to wait an hour or two for an ambulance, which sometimes had to come all the way from Whangārei, he said.
Hato Hone St John Northland district operations manager Ben Lockie said some non-urgent transport requests from the Rāwene area were currently being directed to the emergency ambulance service.
"This is resulting in additional demand on emergency ambulance crews. We are continuing to work with Health New Zealand-Te Whatu Ora and Hauora Hokianga to support a suitable and sustainable solution," he said.
Northland MP Grant McCallum said he had written to St John and Health New Zealand asking them to "sort this out as soon as possible".
"They're having to take ambulances from, say, Kerikeri or Kawakawa, they've got to drive over to Hokianga, pick up a patient, and take them all the way to Whangārei… it's affecting all the Mid-North.
"The current situation is not acceptable and I'd expect they'd be working at haste to sort it out so we don't have ambulances tied up where they shouldn't be, and the people of Hokianga, and the Mid-North, get the appropriate services."
Orme believed the situation could be improved by allowing patient transfers by single-crewed "patient transfer services", as was the case when Rāwene still had a hospital.
Rāwene St John volunteer Denis Orme, centre, with Northland MP Grant McCallum in 2024. Photo: RNZ/ Peter de Graaf
The problems were compounded by a shortage of St John volunteers and staff in Hokianga, he said.
For three years he had been the only ambulance officer volunteering on a regular basis in Rāwene, but ill health had forced him to retire two months ago.
The St John paramedic based at the Rāwene clinic was also currently unable to respond to emergency callouts.
Orme said re-opening Rāwene's ambulance station with at least one officer on duty each day would "significantly improve" local emergency response times.
St John did not respond to questions about whether it was looking to recruit more staff in the Hokianga area, or whether using single-crewed, non-emergency ambulances to transfer patients was a viable solution.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
