'We have not yet seen the peak': St John ambulance service struggle to cope with demand as winter bites

St John national deputy chief executive of ambulance operations Dan Ohs said demand had increased like never before. Photo / George Heard

Ambulance services across the country have been struggling to cope with "extreme" demand and St John fears worse is yet to come.

St John national deputy chief executive of ambulance operations Dan Ohs said resources were so stretched in Auckland an emergency operations centre had been set up to handle the increased demand on services.

Ohs said the number of 111 calls were up 11 per cent on what they would expect in winter and 21 per cent on the average number across the year. Emergency ambulance service demand had increased 6-7 per cent on a usual winter and 14-15 per cent compared to the average across the year.

He said demand had peaked like they had never seen before and come much earlier in the season.

"Our concern is we have not yet seen the peak," he said.

The activation of the emergency operations centre in Auckland is a step usually reserved for major events like the eruption of Whakaari/White Island, an earthquake or a bus crash, Ohs said.

The centre was staffed by six people and would operate for 12 hours a day for at least seven days. Ohs said it was likely the set-up would remain in place until the end of the school holidays but they may decide to keep it running over the rest of the peak winter season.

The centre would help co-ordinate ambulance resources at a national level, ensuring resources were moved to where the need was the highest.

Demand was higher across all groups but the most significant increase had been in children.

Ohs said there had been a 100 per cent increase in the number of patients up to 9 years old with respiratory illnesses.

Also putting a strain on the service was staff sickness. Staff were experiencing the same level of sickness that was being seen in the community so the buffer of staff available to be called in was being used to cover sickness rather than boost numbers, he said.

That meant there could be waits of two to three hours for non-urgent ambulance call-outs, however life-threatening cases would be attended in the same timeframe as usual.

He asked New Zealanders to help them out and call their GP or Healthline in the first instance if they were feeling unwell or needed health advice, as well as consider other ways of getting to medical facilities for non-urgent conditions.

This comes as hospitals around the country report record levels of winter sickness among children.

The number of children seeking hospital care for the highly contagious respiratory syncytial virus has spiked over the past month, seeing hospitals turn playrooms into extra space for beds, call in extra staff and issuing bans on children visiting patients in hospitals.

ESR (Institute of Environmental Science and Research) data shows weekly visits to our six main hospitals for RSV had more than doubled in the past week, from 204 to 538 presentations. Only 34 cases were recorded between April to September last year.

In May, the Herald reported Auckland hospitals were overloaded with sick and injured patients being left in hospital corridors, with ambulances queuing outside emergency departments because of skyrocketing demand.

Emergency responders were told to transport patients to "alternative facilities" such as community accident and medical centres or, in less severe cases, sending a paramedic to treat them at home.

In April, the Herald reported patients were waiting up to two hours for an ambulance, with St John confirming the "average" delay in transferring a patient into the care of emergency department personnel was between 30 to 45 minutes.