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TV medical dramas such as ER are being blamed for contributing to an increase in assaults on St John ambulance officers.
St John national health and safety spokesman Rob McAulay said the dramas created unrealistic expectations on paid and volunteer staff.
The claim comes as figures released to the Herald on Sunday reveal more than 70 assaults on St John officers in the past three financial years.
The assaults ranged from minor incidents to violent attacks. "A lot of our staff accept some of the abuse and that sort of thing as part of the job, which is kind of unfortunate they have to do that," McAulay said.
He said TV shows left some people thinking patients could be fixed straight away.
"But of course reality is different to what Hollywood portrays." He said less than 10 per cent of cardiac arrest patients survived "but you see it on television and it's 98 per cent".
McAulay said TV One's fly-on-the wall show Rapid Response was helping to dispel public myths. He said it made viewers think "Maybe there's a little bit more to it than what you see on ER... two shocks and they're alive again".
Karl Andersen, spokesman for the Federation of Ambulance Officer Unions of New Zealand, agreed that unrealistic television programmes could be hampering officers.
"They have had assaults where family or friends expect a better outcome and have not got it. They've then taken it out on them. People expect an ambulance officer to save their life but they simply can't always do that."
Andersen believed some attacks went unreported. "What's of more concern than the assaults is the general harassment.#"The general lack of respect is terrible."
He said some officers had equipment stolen while treating patients.
Last month, Nelson teenager Anthony Troy Minto was sentenced to seven months in prison for unlawfully taking and crashing an ambulance while staff tried to treat a patient.
Associate head of AUT's school of communication studies, Alan Cocker, said TV's social impacts had been underplayed by researchers.
He said many studies focused on single programmes rather than genres, and the true effect was seen over a much longer period.
"We've been subjected to about 15 years of reality television. I would think there would be some effect that would come from that." Cocker said it would be almost impossible to change programming by arguing a genre was having negative effects and the Broadcasting Standards Authority did not have the jurisdiction to make such rulings.
"It is really involved with individual episodes and doesn't monitor what's happening over the longer term as it can't act on that."
McAulay said St John staff were trained to deal with violence since 2003 and could refuse to enter a situation that looked threatening.
That was most common at night with car crashes and large gatherings. It tended to happen in highly emotional situations, although alcohol and drugs were often a factor. "If it's going wrong they can walk away and we will support them with that action - even if they get an adverse result."
