Nelson paramedics desperate for bigger ambulance station

Otago Daily Times

17-06-2025

By Samantha Gee of RNZ
Paramedics in Nelson are in desperate need of a new station, with Hato Hone St John staff split between four sites as they work to provide life-saving services in the community.
The organisation has purchased a 4000sq m section in Richmond, but needs to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to build a new station.
St John Nelson Tasman area operations manager Anne-Maree Harris said the team's base is a small station in Richmond that operates 24/7, that was first built as a temporary solution for the rapidly growing district.
"It's what I would call a three-bedroom home that we utilised 15 years ago into an ambulance station."
Harris said on her first shift in the region, 25 years ago, there was a conversation about the need for a new headquarters.
Now, more than two decades on, ambulance staff and their managers work from different locations.
The Richmond Station lacked adequate space for staff and volunteers to rest, practice clinical skills and safely debrief after complex callouts and there was not enough room to securely store its ambulance fleet, she said.
"We're beyond capacity, we have a responsibility to provide rest areas for our staff on night shift to make sure that they're safe and they can drive safely... as well as providing them an opportunity to have office space to do their admin or further studies and clinical work."
Staff are split across four sites in Richmond, Nelson City, Stoke and Tāhunanui.
"We don't have our managers under the same roof as our duty crews at the moment. They are currently based in Stoke, so that we lose the opportunity to be able to monitor the well-being of our staff... we become more reactive than proactive."
She said the crew made it work, but being located in one building would make a big difference to its operations.
"We see harm, we see some horrific things and part of that is how we come back to station and we allow our team to talk in a safe environment about their feelings, their emotions, and we discuss what went well, what can we do differently, how can we improve and we've got no privacy to do that on this site."
Critical care paramedic Jon Leach was involved with the Richmond Station when it was first built, and recalled that the plan was for it to be moved to a smaller centre in the region, to make way for a larger facility within five or so years.
He said since then, there had been significant growth in the surrounding district, which included the increase of an ageing population.
In the 25 years he had been a paramedic, there had been huge changes in the issues people presented with, the workload and the care that was administered.
"When I first started, we were pretty much load and go and like give you some Entonox (pain medication) and now we're making massive differences here pre-hospital, the paramedic skill set is amazing."
Leach said there were several dedicated pathways to support patients when it came to falls prevention, strokes, palliative care and severe heart attacks, several of which Nelson had been at the forefront of, and a dedicated facility would enable more of that work to continue.
Data showed frontline ambulance crews responded to more than 450,000 incidents around the country in 2024 and in the past decade, demand for services had increased nearly 90%.
Hato Hone St John are aiming to raise $4.5 million to rebuild 10 ambulance stations around the country, including the Nelson station, with proceeds of its annual appeal this month going toward the new builds.
The other new stations are located in Whangārei, Waihī, Cambridge, Morrinsville, Palmerston North, Akaroa, Oamaru, Riversdale and Invercargill.
It also has plans to renovate or repair the stations in Kawakawa, central Auckland and Rangiora.