Celebrating its 90th Anniversary

St. John Ambulance Bridgetown is celebrating 90 years of serving the Bridgetown Greenbushes community.

St. John started in WA in 1903 when the St. John Council of Western Australia sent a squad of First Aid Volunteers to the Royal Show. The following year the first men’s division of St. John Ambulance Brigade was formed, the first women’s division was formed in 1913.

In Perth, St. John took over the ambulance service from the Fire Brigade on the 1st July 1922.

By 1930 there were 50 sub-centers throughout the state. In 1929 Bridgetown had a division of St. John but it was in 1933 the Bridgetown Ambulance Service was formed which we know as it is today.

John Jones has been a member of the Bridgetown Ambulance service for 62 years and has built up a very good knowledge and tells us a few facts about Bridgetown St Johns Ambulance, “Back then, 90 years ago Bridgetown had two sections of St John in town.

“The Operation Section, St John Ambulance Brigade Officers and members were in uniform and carried out public duties rendering first aid in the community and also drove and attended patients in ambulances.

“And the teaching section, The St John Association. It taught first aid to the public and raised finance for the buildings and ambulances. The Association members also drove and attended patients. All of the brigade personnel were also members of the Association. The Brigade side closed down in 1989. All the officers carried on as Association Members in a different uniform.

“It was in 1929 when a division of the brigade was registered.

“Railway personnel that had been in town since the opening of the railway line to Bridgetown in 1898, are the workers who made up the officers and personnel of this division and used their own vehicles to transport patients to hospital.

“It was these men of this division that requested that the St John Ambulance Association in Perth start a sub-centre in Bridgetown.
“Along with these men and dedication from business people and members of the public the sub centre was started in July 1933.

“Over the next 90 years of the sub-centre’s existence 22 chairpersons have shown leadership with strong committees. The first female chairperson in 88 years, Elza Wallis has chaired the sub-centre for the last twenty months.

“The first sub-centre building, a church hall, was purchased for five hundred pounds, and housed a secondhand camper van brought for two hundred and sixty pounds that was converted into the towns first ambulance.

“A new sub-centre was built on the corner of Hampton Street and Lockley Avenue in 1959 at a cost of fifty-five thousand pounds.

“The present-day sub centre building was completed and commissioned in 2007 costing $700,000. Today it houses three up to date purpose-built fully equipped Mercedes Ambulances, each costing $200,000.

Bridgetown Sub-Centre now has a paid first aid officer who teaches first aid to the public and schools.

The work load of the volunteer officers has doubled in the last ten years to over 800 call outs for emergencies and hospital transfers each year.

John tells us about the changes he has seen over time and how the service has grown, “The qualifications for ambulance officers has changed from just having a first-aid certificate and a driver’s license to six full weekends of training with paramedics, twenty training nights each year to sign off all skill which is required.

“There are now a dedicated day, night, and weekend rostered twelve-hour shifts for both emergencies and for hospital transfers.

“This now requires eight officers every twenty-four hours. The call outs for an ambulance in town has progressed from a siren on a building in Steere Street to a computerised system operated state wide.

“This change has also seen the recording of patients’ information from paper to iPad.”

The people involved in the Bridgetown St John Ambulances service are proud of their inheritance and they give their time voluntary to serve the communities of Bridgetown and Greenbushes and quite often to others outside these boundaries.

Officers are called out and respond to anything from applying a band-aid to motor vehicle accidents, cardiac problems, transient ischemic attacks (TIA), and cerebrovascular accidents (CVA), domestic and sporting accidents, the unwell and sick, and for pregnancies and mental health problems.”

As of 19th April, St Johns Bridgetown strength is 26 active officers on roster, ten probation officers and four support staff, a total of 40.

The hundreds of people that have given their time over the last ninety years to the present day, have given to our community a lasting service that we all can be proud of.

An Open Day is to held on Saturday 10th June from 10am-2pm. There will be giveaways, bandaging demonstrations, inflatable fun and activities and you will be able to tour your local sub-centre and view the fleet of ambulances with a chance to meet ‘Kura Bear’.