The St. John National Council Chairlady, Dame Jean Kekedo has stated that tougher laws need to be put in place to protect ambulance first responders so they can go about doing their job in saving lives. “That is why I, and many others, are asking parliament to please support the St John Ambulance (SJA) Bill going to parliament this week.” Dame Jean and the St. John Community are thankful to the Prime Minister, the Opposition for pledging their support for the bill and also thanked Sir Dr. Puka Temu for bringing the Bill to Parliament. This is following the unacceptable attack on two St. John ambulance officers that were attacked when responding to an emergency call at the Bumbu Compound on the night of Saturday, 25th November. According to a statement from SJA, at around 7pm Ambulance Officers Douglas Vanua and Victor Ombo, stopped at the scene to find the patient when they were approached by a male with a hammer. The hammer-armed male proceeded to swing at the ambulance and shattered the ambulance glass with the hammer inflicting significant damage. Although the officers managed to flee the scene in the ambulance without physical injury, both officers were in shock and traumatized by the incident. The repair work to the damage done to the ambulance would cost thousands of Kina and whilst this will go on, there will be one less ambulance operating in Lae City. “Based on the information available, at this stage we believe that the attacker made a false call to the ambulance service to lure the ambulance to the scene where his intoxicated rampage took place.” Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of St John Ambulance, Mr. Matt Cannon said that a suspect has been identified and a formal complaint has been made to police. “Despite many people calling for us to stop servicing the communities in which we are attacked, we simply cannot do that. We know that communities protect our officers.” “Communities need our help. The actions of one individual in a community should not put at risk the lives of all others. We will not let these cowards create a divide in our service.” Cannon mentioned that this incident highlighted the unique dangers that the St John ambulance men and women face in our communities every day. “Every day, St John responds to hundreds of genuine calls for help in our major city centers and into many rural parts of the nation too.” He added that over 4, 000 false calls are made to ambulance service 111 every day, which causes a hindrance for genuine calls getting through to the emergency hotline. Meanwhile, Dame Kekedo stated that there were no laws protecting ambulance officers despite St John being the only service of its type in this nation that is responding directly into communities for emergencies at all hours of the day or night. “St John Ambulances go places even the police would consider dangerous and they do this so that others may live, but there are no laws protecting St John officers specifically.” “There is no law making it illegal to false call the ambulance service, no law making it a specific offence to hinder an ambulance officer from performing their duties and there is no specific law making it more serious to attack an ambulance officer.” Dame Kekedo further added that there were no laws that enabled the ambulance service to see the exact location of the 111 caller at the time the call is made, so to help officers identify fake calls and also quickly locate casualties in rural locations without street addresses. Dame Kekedo also sent her sincere appreciation to police who responded to assist the ambulance team and the Lae city authority and Morobe Provincial Health Authority, who are providing direct assistance to both, respond to this incident and work together to prevent further such isolated incidents from occurring again.