St John is warning of ambulance delays in the face of 'unprecedented demand' for its services, largely due to the Omicron outbreak.
Clinical Director Dr Tony Smith said: "The longest delay we've seen in Auckland, and this was for a non-life threatening condition... was over 12 hours."
He admitted there have also been a handful of life-threatening cases that have had delays of about an hour.
The organisation's workload is up by 10 per cent nationwide and 20 per cent in Auckland.
Around 400 patients usually need an ambulance in Auckland each day, but that's climbed to over 500, Smith said.
"We are experiencing the highest number of calls and the highest number of incidents requiring an ambulance response that I have seen in the 24 years I have been with St John."
The surge in demand comes at a time where staff numbers are down, both due to Covid-19 and vacancies.
Around 100 staff are currently isolating, and 70 per cent of them are in Auckland.
Of those isolating, 11 are Covid positive.
There're a further 29 staff members who are considered close contacts but continue to work, using the test to return to work scheme.
Smith said: "Increasingly what we're seeing is vaccinated parents getting Covid from their unvaccinated children."
The organisation says it's training additional people for the frontline and its communication centres.
Each day it is also bringing an additional 16 ambulance officers into Auckland from other regions, as well as extra vehicles.
The locations staff are deployed from ranges from day to day and St John says it has a number of initiatives to ensure their ordinary shifts are still covered.
Smith is urging Kiwis not to call 111 if their problem is not an emergency.
He admitted all callers may face delays getting through to the call centre but said, "we will always get an ambulance to you immediately, if you have an immediately life threatening problem."
He says with any anticipated delays, staff call to make sure it's safe.
The organisation says it's already a tough time for staff, and they're now experiencing verbal abuse from those angry about wait times.
"We expect our workload to climb and probably peak in six-nine weeks from now", said Smith.
Right now, 100 calls a day are directly related to Covid-19, but a large number of other people call with relevant symptoms and test positive in the ambulance or once they arrive to the emergency department.
"In some emergency departments in New Zealand, as many as 20-25 per cent of everybody presenting to the emergency department are Covid positive".
He said it's too soon to know what Phase 3 will look like for St John.
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