ST. JOHN AMBULANCE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 36, 24 December 1943, Page 4

ST. JOHN AMBULANCE

Sir, —It was with great satisfaction that I read a letter written by N. Parker asking for information re tlie St. John's Ambulance Brigade. I wish to thank him for his interest! and thoughtl'ulness in writing through your paper thus giving the Brigade an opportunity to, answer his enquiry publicly.. In these, days when tlxc public in Whakatane. and elsewhere arc living in abnormal times, a waroo r which has caused a Dominion short-; age of doctors. ; The St. John Brigades throughout the Dominion are now answering more calls than ever lie fore., Our local Brigade is on call at any hour of the. day and night, should occasion, arise requiring our services. In order to obtain our service contact has. to Ik;.' made with one of the 10-cal practising doctors, or bj» contacting Dr. Dawson or the Matron of the Whakatane Hospital. Our Brigade has a personnel of !both men and nurses trained to cope with all cases of. sickness: and acci-: dent. This training has at present reached a high standard of efficiency and it is only by keeping up- attendance at all; our weekly parades and, lectures that our personnel can keep up to date and remain efficient. Quite recently we have been able to purchase a section for a building site situated at the corner of King and Haig Streets, and we hope to be able to raise funds to erect a suitable building. We are fully aware that the public has a lot of calls for financial assistance at pre-r sent but we feel that we must look ahead and endeavour to improve our service to our district so that after the war we will be able to offer the public a more efficient .service. At present wc have eight members in the Armed Forces overseas and when they return our personnel will be increased considerably. At present we hold our parades in the Methodist Hall, our Nursing Division- one night and the Men's and. Cadet division another. If we had a hall of our own we would eventually hold parades lour nights weekly. This you can understand is impossible under existing circumstances.

Wc, will in the near luturc be. outlining our activities in a much i'ullr or way hut I trust that the above will to some extent answer N.. Parker and li thank him for his enquiry. Yours etc., 1-1 J., RAMSON, Superintendent St. John Ambulance Brigade., Wliakatane.