St John resources across South Otago were stretched yesterday afternoon, highlighting the service's volunteer shortages.
St John Waitaki area rural support officer Ken Barton said the ambulance service had ''a lot'' of transfers from Clutha Health First to Dunedin Hospital, a very sick patient, and a callout in Owaka, all between 1pm and 5pm.
Milton was already assisting Balclutha St John, so an ambulance from Dunedin was sent to help with patient transfers while Balclutha staff attended the ill patient.
The service also activated an ''all call'', and non-rostered Balclutha volunteers manned the second ambulance and went to Owaka, Mr Barton said.
Yesterday highlighted the importance of volunteers to the service, he said.
''We are dealing with finite resources - we're trying to do the best we can.''
There were two ambulances based in Balclutha but volunteers were needed to man them..
''If we can get enough volunteers, we can crew Balclutha's second ambulance.''
The shortage was a national issue.
Over the past two years, St John staff in the Waitaki area - which covers from Geraldine to Owaka - have attended 36,274 callouts. Most of these are classified as ''emergency ambulance service'' or urgent work, with only 4180 patient-transfer jobs.
The Owaka station, which covers halfway to Balclutha and through the Catlins, is manned by eight volunteers and is covered by Balclutha during the day.
At a public meeting in Owaka last month, residents were told at least 12 more volunteers were needed to keep the service running.
The Owaka area committee was willing to fund some accommodation in the township for those who lived out of pager coverage, in order to have enough volunteers. Shifts were flexible, and most volunteers would work about three shifts a month.
A drop in the number of people volunteering for St John nationally has the organisation rushing to head the problem off before it becomes ''dire''.
Earlier this year, St John Balclutha team operations manager Stuart Holgate said St John was struggling to keep the ambulance manned around the clock.
''Volunteers are an essential part of the team. Of late, we're struggling to fill our shifts - often we're single-crewing just to keep manning the shifts. Ideally we would have two staff on each shift.''
He said people interested in becoming St John volunteers were encouraged to start as observers to see if volunteering was for them.
Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer can visit their local St John office or call (0800) 785-646.
