St John Annual Appeal Starts Today

MEDIA RELEASE: St John Annual Appeal Starts Today

There are so many stories… Every day St John responds to over 1000 calls for help; that’s one call every minute and a half; 400,000 calls a year.

With 1 in 10 New Zealanders needing help each year, chances are you have a friend or relative who has needed St John in the past and chances are you will know someone in the future.

Next time it could be you; your brother, your daughter, your mother – your child.

One of the lives we have saved is Israel Hughes, who, when he almost died, was not yet one month old.

His parents Clare and Jason had just brought him home from hospital, and were putting him down to change his nappy when – without warning – Israel turned blue and floppy, then he suddenly stopped breathing.

Clare called 111. The paramedics arrived, assessed Israel’s condition and proceeded to move him as quickly as possible to the ambulance for the 40-minute journey to the hospital. The paramedics continued to monitor his condition closely when once again, Israel stopped breathing.

Clare was so shocked she can barely remember what happened next: “We stopped while they got him breathing again. They were so gentle with him, really careful and respectful…but it was all a bit of a blur for me. I was so afraid, I cried quietly all the way to the hospital.”

Arriving at the emergency department, Israel was diagnosed with Strep B Meningitis. He spent more than a week in the Intensive Care Unit. It was nearly a month before Clare and Jason could take him home. Israel made a full recovery, and he’ll be celebrating his third birthday later this month.

Peter Bradley is Chief Executive Officer of St John New Zealand. As well as being in charge of the organisation, Peter is himself a former paramedic. So he understands how important it is for St John to have the best equipment we can to help save lives. He knows of how essential your donations are to support St John in your community.

“We deal with a huge range of incidents – from motor vehicle accidents and serious accidents at the workplace, through to cardiac arrests and people being injured in their homes. Everything we do in St John is for the patient, and everything we do supports our patients in some way.

“Our Ambulances are the most well-known part of our business, but did you know they cost $165,000 to put on the road? It costs another $50,000 to equip it with life-saving equipment, such as defibrillators, medications and oxygen. You’ll agree that this is a lot of money, which is why we need your support and donations now.”

Peter continues: “St John is constantly looking for better ways of working, and better ways to care for patients across New Zealand. We want to make sure that we are getting to patients faster, with the right care, first time.

“We need your support now to help us help patients like Israel every day.”

Please donate to our Annual Appeal today at stjohnappeal.org.nz.

You can also donate today at any ASB Branch or ext ‘ST JOHN’ to 336 to donate $3.

St John at a Glance

St John uses donations to buy equipment and important emergency medical resources to help save lives in your community.

Did you know….

• 415,832 patients were treated by St John last year across New Zealand – that’s well over 1,100 patients a day.

• St John received 380,785 emergency 111 calls last year - that’s over 1,000 calls for help every day.

• St John ambulances travel over 18,793,436 kilometres every year. Or to put it another way, that’s the equivalent of driving to Australia and back 4,515 times or to the moon and back 49 times!

• A new ambulance costs around $160,000 plus another $50,000 to outfit– that’s over $200,000 to get an ambulance on the road.

• St John offers community programmes including St John Youth, Safe Kids, Caring Caller, Friends of the Emergency Department and Outreach Therapy Pets.

• St John trains 65,800 people per year on first aid courses.
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