What does the work involve?

New Zealand ambulance services operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and use everything from conventional ambulances, four-wheel drive vehicles and rapid response units to motorcycles and helicopters.

In addition to emergency services, ambulance services also include:

• Transporting patients for arranged hospital admissions
• Transferring patients between hospitals or from hospital to home
• Assisting police and fire serviecs by providing medical cover in emergency situations
• Staffing air ambulance flights and connections

An ambulance officer’s role is to administer pre-hospital emergency care from the time the ambulance locates a patient, to the time that patient arrives at the hospital or treatment centre.

What does this mean?

Ambulance officers are called upon to perform a huge range of tasks as part of their everyday duties these could include:

• Attending accidents and emergencies
• Treating sick and injured people
• Transporting patients and accident victims to medical facilities
• Liaising with other emergency services, such as fire and police at the scene of an emergency
• Ensuring the ambulance and equipment is well kept and in a good working condition
• Completing patient paperwork making sure this is kept confidential
• Transfering non-emergency patients to and from medical facilities

While working as an ambulance officer and as a volunteer, you’ll learn plenty of new skills, including:

• Patient assessment
• Basic emergency patient care
• Communication
• Moving and transporting patients
• Ambulance driving
• Scene management – ensuring safety, gaining control of crisis situations, and using resources effectively
• Being a team member who people can rely on
• Communication with people and other ambulance services