The St. John Ambulance will deploy three Ambulance Special Operations Teams (ASOT) to support the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary in the Highlands region.
St. John Ambulance CEO, Matt Cannon said this was at the request of the Police Commissioner.
“The National Election period is expected to cause a general increase in calls for help to SJA, particularly related to trauma.
“We are deploying extra ambulance officers from Port Moresby to regional stations to boost the service capacity at regional stations.
St John CEO, Matt Cannon said the ambulance special operations team will support the RPNGC airborne tactical unit, responding to time-critical medical emergencies.
He said during the 2017 elections, the ambulance service responded to significant incidences of violence.
“Sadly, we already see indications that this may be the case during this election period. One of the biggest challenges SJA faces is having enough ambulances to respond to the growing number of people needing help.
“St John’s ambulance workload has increased from some 3500 emergency calls in 2017 to over 13,800 emergency calls in 2021 - "this is a fourfold increase in people needing help from ambulance services in just four years," said Cannon.
Many of the ambulances St John is using were purchased in 2017 for APEC. These ambulances are over five years old and require expensive maintenance to keep up with the growing demand for service.
“We are actively seeking donations to replace the old ambulances with new ones to be in a better position to reliably respond to the growing number of people needing emergency assistance around PNG.
“SJA will continue to be on hand to help people during the election period.”