St John to end its Specialist Emergency Response Team at year's end
Hato Hone St John will stop operating its Specialist Emergency Response Team (SERT) at the end of 20 December 2026, according to RNZ. The team is a group of specially trained paramedics who work alongside police and firefighters at high-risk scenes.
St John has three SERT teams, in Auckland, Tauranga and Christchurch. Auckland's team has about nine members. Its medics are trained to use breathing apparatus in gas-filled areas and to abseil with cliff rescue firefighters.
The paramedics also train with the police armed offenders squad. SERT crews went to the scene of the Linwood Avenue mosque shooting in Christchurch during the March 2019 terrorist attacks.
St John told Fire and Emergency New Zealand that its SERT teams had no dedicated funding. Health NZ did not progress St John's request for SERT funding in the 2026/27 financial year, the RNZ report says.
Fire and Emergency's planned response to emergencies in Auckland's City Rail Link tunnels calls for SERT to back up firefighters. That plan relies on a service that St John has said will end later this year.
Health NZ employs almost no paramedics, and most of New Zealand's ambulance services are provided by two providers, one of which is St John. Health NZ's website says St John charges a small part of the cost to medical patients who use an ambulance.
