Wellington Free Ambulance is celebrating its 4th year anniversary of Urgent Community Care in Kāpiti today.
Four years ago in May, Wellington Free Ambulance began New Zealand’s first treat-at-home mobile health service with extended care paramedics specially trained for the service.
Grateful Paraparaumu patient Julie Parkinson and her husband John have both had to use the service a number of times in recent years.
Julie is making and icing a special cake for the occasion and presenting it to the extended care paramedics who will visit her at her home at 2.30 p.m. on May 7.
“It is a marvellous service and we are so pleased we are living in the Wellington Free Ambulance region as their service is free of charge, unlike the rest of the country where people have to pay for an ambulance,” says Mrs Parkinson.
The extended care paramedics are given extra training which enables them to prescribe antibiotics and stitch wounds as well as perform other services standard paramedics don’t.
In the past four years UCC extended care paramedics have seen 6434 Kāpiti patients and successfully treated more than half in their own home or the community.
