St John ambulance staff who responded to the Christchurch mosque shootings share their stories. With frustrations over stalled wage negotiations among paramedics running high, some are calling for the nationalisation of the ambulance service. Nationalising the ambulance service, or for the government to take much greater control, would have a massive impact on St John and Wellington Free Ambulance, the two charities that run ambulances. St John formed its first ambulance service in 1892 in Dunedin. Reports of ambulance service failures that cost lives, or threaten lives, are rare, but Quin says the publicly available statistics tell only a partial story.

Source: Stuff April 02, 2019 17:00 UTC