Fire Brigade

BIG CHANGES IN MEDICAL RESPONSE FOR MARTINBOROUGH

The Martinborough Fire Brigade are delighted to announce the approval to be one of the first Medical First Response Units in the Region, to be based here in town. 

The Fire Brigade members working closely with the Martinborough Medical PRIME (Primary Response in a Medical Emergency) program Doctors and Nurses, Wellington Free Ambulance as Response and Training partners, and with the support of the community through the Martinborough District Ambulance Trust, will provide a Medical First Response to the Martinborough District to enable better outcomes and a speedier response if you are seriously sick or injured. The Brigade will continue to respond to Cardiac Arrests as a Medical Co-Response with Ambulance along aside this new Medical First Response unit.

Selected Brigade members will be undertaking a specialist Medical First Responder Course provided by Wellington Free Ambulance, and will continue with a once a month medical training night. Once the course is complete these Medical First Responders will be awarded and identified by the unique Medical First Responder patch 

We are seeking any members of the community to join the Brigade as dedicated Medical First Responders, so if you have a Nursing, Emergency Medicine,  Paramedic or similar background (you may qualify for a short familiarisation course), we would love to hear from you . The Brigade envisages, with enough interest, you would only spend 2 – 3 days a month on call along with a single night a month training. 

Please email our Chief –  Jacob.hawkins@fireandemergency.nz

Jake would also love to hear from you if you are available during the day especially, to bolster the team for our usual responses, we can work with you, for example to only respond during the weekday when many of our members have work or business commitments.

In other big news, congratulations on promotions and course completions, to our new Station Officers Lisa-Marie Ireland, Matt McQuaid and Bradley Aldridge, SFF Justin Hudepohl and FF Brett Townsend. Well done for all the hard work.

The Brigade has been quite busy this month with both our usual fires and medical/rescue work, and we are now in a RESTRICTED FIRE SEASON (permit required) but remember it is still quite dry out there and a reminder that  www.checkitsalright.nz is where to find out all the information you need.

And finally Fire Chief Jake Hawkins has offered to answer any questions you have, if you think you see smoke or fire and are unsure whether you should act, or if you may have concerns about whether we are responding to a call for help – his phone number is 0272-559-440.