While many were watching the State of Origin Game 3 last night, it was a busy evening for St John Ambulance emergency crews at various stations across the country.
Among routine emergency workloads like maternal cases, heart attacks, accidents and stroke, ambulance crews were extra busy responding to many people injured through violence.
Much of this violence was related to alcohol consumption.
On Wednesday night there have been multiple cases happening simultaneously in Lae and Kokopo, which exceeded ambulance availability and resulted in delays reaching all patients quickly.
St John currently staffs one ambulance crew at night in Kokopo and Lae respectively. To get to patients as quickly as possible and to avoid delays, off-duty ambulance officers were called in to assist with a backlog of cases in Kokopo.
A statement from the CEO Matt Cannon’s office stated that the number of emergencies St John is called to respond to in Kokopo/Gazelle and Lae is increasing each month. Thus, it is top priority for St John to be able to staff more ambulances each day and night at regional stations.
“We welcome donations and support that can help to fund the training and rostering of more ambulance officers for busy regional stations like Lae and Kokopo/Gazelle,” he said.
Unfortunately, there was one incident where rocks were thrown at an ambulance proceeding urgently to Agevairu Clinic for an emergency in Central Province. Such violence towards ambulances isn't acceptable while ambulance crews are trying to help others.
“We thank the public who assisted our crews in assisting patients and getting them to the safety of hospitals,” Cannon said.