A lifeline for the community
Auckland, September 17, 2019
A Pukekohe family’s donation of an ambulance to St John is proving to be a lifesaving gift to the community, having responded to more than a thousand emergencies in six months.
On February 28 this year, Raymond Jivan, his father Nathu and their extended family dedicated a new frontline ‘Generation 3 Emergency Ambulance’ to St John, a dream that Nathu and his late wife Sandra, who were market gardeners, had dreamed of for many decades.
Long-time dream
“Quite a while ago, maybe thirty or forty years ago, Mum and Dad spoke about donating an ambulance to St John. They were fishing with a friend, who was a local doctor, and they talked about how one day when they made good money they would give back to the community,” says Raymond, who helped his father turn that dream into reality when he made a trip to the local Mercedes dealership and got things underway.
Over the six-month period that the ambulance has been in operation, it has responded to 1137 incidents. Of these, 459 were for immediately life threatening or time critical emergencies and 773 required transport to a hospital or treatment centre.
“It is great. We are really happy and proud that we’ve been able to do something to help our community. We see it all the time in Pukekohe and on the motorway. In fact, a few weeks ago, one of our family members needed an ambulance. I went over to their house, as I was worried about him. It wasn’t until the ambulance was leaving, that I noticed it was our ambulance,” Raymond said.
Generous public support
Each year, St John needs to find funding for 38 frontline emergency ambulances nationwide, 12 of which are for the Northern Region but this varies year to year.
St John General Manager (Northern and Central Region) Andrew Boyd said that the Organisation is very grateful for the generous public support received from donors like the Jivan family.
“As a charity, St John depends on donations from the public to run our emergency ambulance service and to deliver essential community programmes throughout the country. This ensures we can be there for New Zealanders when they need our help,” he said.
St John’s Gen 3 emergency ambulances are innovative and practical and designed to keep our ambulance officers safe as they treat and transport patients. They have powerlifted stretchers which help reduce lifting injuries and a variety of high-tech life-saving equipment including a monitor and defibrillator, an intravenous line, blood pressure cuff and a first response kit.
Source: St John Ambulance
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