A Tokoroa mother was forced to perform CPR on her baby in the back of an ambulance this week when the vehicle arrived with only one officer.

The baby later died at Tokoroa Hospital.

A close family member, who did not want to be identified, said the family called the ambulance on Monday morning when the baby boy had difficulty breathing.

"The St John ambulance turned up with only one lady," the woman said.

"She drove the ambulance to the hospital while the mother of the baby did CPR in the back." The woman said the incident raised questions about why the ambulance was staffed by only one person, leaving a distressed mother to perform CPR.

"I would have thought the ambulance officer would do that," she said.

"Why even bother calling the ambulance if the mother is going to do CPR?

"This issue needs to be dealt with. I'm really angry.

"You call the ambulance because you trust them when you're sick."

She said the death had been "very upsetting" for the family.

They were preparing for the baby's tangi.

St John Ambulance regional operations manager Brent Nielsen today explained the circumstances surrounding the incident.

He said a single-crewed ambulance was sent to the emergency, and a call was placed to a back-up officer who was immediately sent to the scene.

It took nine minutes between emergency staff receiving the call and the ambulance leaving the baby's house to take him to Tokoroa Hospital, 500m away.

Mr Nielsen said the second officer met the ambulance "moments after it had left the scene" and took over the driving, leaving the first officer free to resume CPR on the baby for the remainder of the trip.

The ambulance arrived at the hospital two minutes after leaving the baby's house.

Mr Nielsen said the person at the scene agreed to assist with CPR, adding that at emergency situations where CPR was needed, it was common for more than one person to perform the procedure to ensure the patient received continuous care.

St John's position on emergency responses was that all ambulances should be double crewed wherever possible.

"Single crewing is never a matter of choice it is a matter of available resources," Mr Nielsen said.

"All emergency responses in New Zealand should be fully crewed. St John is focused on achieving 100 per cent full crewing for all emergency ambulances."

Sometimes full crewing was not possible, due to the unavailability of resources (either paid or volunteer), or a higher than usual number of callouts in one area, Mr Nielsen said.

It was better to send a single-crewed vehicle than no vehicle at all, or to wait for one to come from further away.

Mr Nielsen said St John wished to express its condolences to the family.

nursingaround: I agree with you completely. I was so angry at first but then when the true situation was revealed, it calmed my anger but made me very sad that this could happen. It was horrible enough for the mother to experience her child to stop breathing but to be added to that she had do CPR on her on chld as well was just unbelievable. How many Mothers would be calm enough to be able do that ? Changes should be made to the ambulance company requiring 2 crew members at all times. Unfortunately, it takes something as tragic as this to open people's eyes and do something about these situations.. Perhaps community fund raisers could supply the ambilance company with additional funds. All avenues of resource should be investigated.

In the United States, many rural areas have volunteer fire companies who often respond to medical emergencies. The volunteer fire fighters are usually trained in CPR and can drive ambulances. This provides EMS with a valuable manpower resource when necessary. Does New Zealand have anything similar?

Not sure about your source, but all hospital treatment is free. The big cost is at the traditional family doctor. Many people, not just low income people, struggle with the family doctor bill. An average visit to the family doctor, including prescriptions cost around $100/visit. Children up to 5 or 6 are free, at least it used to be. But it is nothing like the states.
I don't know that the the focus is on a decline for Maori, there certainly isn't a deliberate goal to target a certain ethnic group, when it is a decline for everyone. Most nurses and friends I know don't have private health care insurance, this is the norm.
The problem though is that the waiting lists are ridiculous, sometimes six months or even a year, just for a consult. Some people choose to pay the initial consult fee, just to speed up the process, then have the rest done with public healthcare.
The frustrating thing it that for year upon year the government has had record budget surpluses, but it's not really filtering down to the hospitals, at least not that we can see.

One crew member is unacceptable. I run as a volunteer with my communities Rescue Squad. I am the Asst. Chief there. We do not roll a truck unless there are two on the Ambulance. One driver and one EMT. If two members cannot respond and only one does, that one goes to the scene , BY POV. They can assist untill another service can get a ambulance there to take over. Yes I have responded solo and rode with family to the hospital, POV, while doing CPR. We met the next community Fire medics and local ambulance service enroute and continued to the hospital. Never have we had the family to handle our JOB. That is just irresponsiblity on behave of the ambulance service in NZ.