Dialogue: Copter upheaval has Northland scrapping

ACC was less than sensitive to local feelings when it awarded its air rescue contract for the North to outsiders from an Auckland-based trust. Whangarei reporter DANIEL JACKSON looks at the controversy the issue has stirred up.

Mention rescue helicopters anywhere in Northland and people are likely to blast you with an opinion.

Many are upset that last year the community-owned Northland Emergency Services Trust, which operates a roomy twin-engined Sikorsky helicopter, lost its rescue contract with ACC despite helping to save lives in the area for more than a decade.

The contract went to the North Air Rescue Trust, formed by the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust, which brought its own chopper to Northland.

The move, which locals saw as an invasion by Jafas, caused howls of protest. Feeding this anger were claims and counter-claims from both trusts about the abilities of their helicopters and the ACC's defence of its actions.

This saw the public subjected to a host of truths and half-truths as the trusts fought to protect their businesses and as the personalities involved squabbled.

The argument even reached Parliament. Opposition MPs have scored points over ACC's handling of the Northland trust's contract, especially ACC's claim that one of the criteria the trust failed to meet was proof of its cultural sensitivity, whatever that might mean.

Rescue work made up only about a third of the Northland trust's work before it was stripped of it by ACC. The bulk of the trust's work comes from the inter-hospital transfers of patients.

After it lost the ACC contract, the Northland trust was able to partly protect its future by negotiating a much longer contract with Northland Health for the transfer work.

But it is fighting hard for its return to rescue work as the higher profile that provides makes it easier when it comes to fundraising.

But why did the Auckland trust, which enjoys popular support on its home turf, want to buy into the fight up here?

Probably because it thought it was on to a sure thing when invited by ACC to tender for the Northland contract. It probably also thought it would pick up more work than it has.

The question is, how long can it continue to survive if its workload is only a third of that formerly done by the Northland trust?

ACC made a right mess of things by adopting a bloody-minded attitude when following its contract process and in creating the fight between the two trusts.

It should have known it was also buying a fight with the people of Northland when it decided to award the rescue contract to an outside trust instead of the established local one.

Perhaps a better strategy for the Government agency would have been for it to have first worked with the community-owned Northland trust to resolve any outstanding issues over the service it provided, before pulling the plug.

How did ACC expect the Northland public to feel after they had raised millions of dollars over the years for their own rescue service, only to be told by the state that it was no longer allowed to do the job?

But what has perhaps been lost in all the bickering is that Northland has never been better served by rescue helicopters, simply because there are now two very good services with well-trained and dedicated staff.

While the trusts argue between themselves, they have at least come to an arrangement where if an accident involves more than five people or at least two people are seriously injured, both choppers will go regardless of the differences their management may have.

This has happened on several occasions since the second chopper moved north last October.

The 140,000 or so people in Northland now have a better chance than most in the country of being airlifted to hospital from the side of the road.