WELLINGTON, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Single crewing ambulance call-outs will phase out in the next four years with an additional investment of 59.2 million NZ dollars (40.6 million U.S. dollars), New Zealand Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said on Sunday.
"The government is focused on getting patients the care they need when they need it, and our ambulance services have a key role to play in this," Coleman said.
The government is creating 375 new emergency medical and paramedic roles across the country over the next four years to ensure all emergency road ambulance call-outs are double-crewed by 2021, he said.
Coleman said double crewing all road ambulance call-outs would help ensure the best care possible provided for patients, as well as support the safety and well-being of the paramedic workforce.
Emergency road ambulance call-outs are already almost entirely double-crewed within the Wellington region, the capital. However, for the rest of the country, only 10 percent of the 393,000 call-outs were single-crewed last year.
