As an essential emergency service, St John is well positioned to respond to a pandemic like COVID-19.

We continue to step forward and provide emergency ambulance services throughout New Zealand under all COVID-19 alert levels. All 111 calls are triaged to determine the urgency of the patient's condition and we aim to send the most appropriate ambulance to the patient in greatest need as soon as possible.

St John ambulance officers frequently deal with infectious diseases and to protect our patients and our people, we follow best practice clinical guidelines, including wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when attending patients known or suspected of having COVID-19. 

Our ambulance officers are now routinely wearing surgical masks and gloves for all patient interactions and changing these between patients. Our frontline ambulance officers in the wider Auckland region are now wearing full airborne PPE, including gowns, eye protection, gloves, and N95 masks, to all routine call outs to keep them safe.

We will continue to ensure contaminated surfaces and equipment are cleaned or safely disposed of in biohazard bags and keep the ambulance environment as safe as possible for patients and staff. 

When calling 111 for an ambulance, we will continue to be there for you. Our emergency call handlers will ask questions to understand whether you or anyone else at your address have COVID-19 symptoms. 

It is important that you answer the questions to the best of your knowledge so our ambulance crews can take the appropriate steps to protect them and the public when they come to help you.

St John continues to operate its Patient Transfer Services. Our drivers are following Ministry of Health guidelines to keep patients and themselves safe. This includes increased hygiene and cleaning in our vehicles such as wiping of seats, door handles and steering wheel.

Following the Government’s lockdown update, St John in-class First Aid training courses excluding Auckland and some locations in Waikato have resumed.

All Auckland courses are suspended until at least Sunday 17 October. Some Waikato courses are suspended until Monday 11 October.

If you are booked on a course that has been cancelled, you will need to swap your booking to a later date. To change your course booking, we recommend that you wait until the lockdown level in your region has dropped before contacting us. While our standard terms and conditions state there are no refunds for First Aid courses, you can swap to a later date and/or location free of charge.

When you are in alert level 2 (or below), please email our friendly Customer Service team at info@stjohn.org.nz, or call 0800 FIRST AID (0800 347 782) and we’ll swap your booking for you. (We are experiencing high call volumes, so if you are able please contact us by email unless your call is urgent and we will get back to you as soon as possible). 

For areas that are in alert level 2, St John Health Shuttles are operating under Delta level 2 regulations. Please contact your local team for booking a shuttle.

In Auckland, our health shuttles have been suspended until further notice. This is a regrettable position to have to be in, but the health, safety and wellbeing of our volunteers and our clients is paramount.

We have suspended our Community Care services until further notice, with the exception of our Friends of the Emergency Department service which is resuming in some locations at alert level 2, where it is deemed safe to do so.

We will carefully monitor advice provided by the Ministry of Health and will keep you informed about any changes as they happen. It is unlikely our suspended services will resume until a move to alert level 1. 

The impacted services are:

• Friends of the Emergency Departments (FEDs)
• Hospital Friends
• Community Carers
• Therapy Pets

While we wish we did not have to take this decision, we know it is the right thing to do to protect both our people and the communities we operate in. It is important for us to ensure the health, safety, and wellbeing of all our people, including our paid staff and our huge team of amazing volunteers.

Our Caring Caller service will continue to operate. There may be opportunities for our volunteers from other services to support the Caring Caller programme that we hope to expand to reach more people in need.

St John is a charity and only part-funded by Government. Our charitable status means we need to fundraise throughout the year to ensure our emergency ambulance service and community health programmes have the necessary resources to enable St John to be there for all New Zealanders.

We are grateful for the continued generosity of individuals and organisations who support us with donations, fundraising events, and by purchasing St John products and services.