Faye McCann: First Union National Ambulance Coordinator on the funding boost for ambulance services

Some ambulance workers feel the Government's funding boost is too little, too late. 

The Government's increasing ambulance service funding by 6%. 

Hato Hone St John says the extra money has helped it settle pay disputes with unions, ending weeks of industrial action. 

First Union National Ambulance Coordinator Faye McCann told Mike Hosking that it hasn’t really fixed any of the problems they’re concerned about, but it has alleviated some of the financial burden people are facing.  

She says it’s definitely a Band-Aid fix.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good news Saint John and the workers. They've settled their
pay dispute. The government's going to be injecting another twenty
one million into the charity, brings the total funding perannum
to three point fifty seven million. We had some industrial
action that ended last week. Members voted in favor of
the latest settlement officer offer and now the first union
National Organizer for Emergency Services famer CAN is with us. Fay,
good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well what number did you get? What did it end
up with? Pay rise wise?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
So staff thought most of the staff got a three
point two five percent pay increase. Dumb staff who were
paid below the living wage ended up getting just over
a nine percent increase, and that's to bump them up
to the living wage.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Does that make you happier? Are you going to be
going around again?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's definitely a band aid, folks, I mean, any more
funding that goes into the ambulance services. Obviously a win
in terms of the settlement we're going to be embarking
next year. It still hasn't really fixed the problems that
we were concerned about, but certainly it's alleviated some of
the financial burden that people.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Are finding them correct me if I'm wrong. There seems
to be a New Zealand first lead type thing. They've
always been keen on funding the ambulance service in a
better way than it has been previously. Are we getting
close to it basically being a government department like the
emergency services generally?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I think that we're still actually quite far away from that.
I think some of it is the fact that Saint
John wasn't saying they wanted to be fully funded until
very recently, so that obviously makes it a bit difficult
from our member's perspective. Absolutely, they want it to be
government led. I think there's a lot of questions around
how it's run in general, and actually it makes it

(01:35):
very difficult with them being a charity to find out
that information and that's not what it should be for
an ambulance service.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Do we need to change all that?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
I believe.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
So.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
We've also got Wellington Free, who's all fill a charity
that they haven't had any announcements for their funding. But
the assumption would be that if you've put a band
aid on one and surely you need to put a
band aid on the.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Other, well, said Faie. Appreciated Famer can Who's with the
First Union.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
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