Should SAR charge for ALL rescues?

the reality is, sar are obligated to respond, when people delay calling for a rescue to try and avoid being rescued, its SAR that bear the brunt of what often becomes a more difficult and dangerous SAR operation... then thers the issue if some rescue services dont get the money from the rescuees to often do they refuse to respond to rescues because they cant afford the loss of earnings? do we demand someone front up with money before firing up the helicopter? overseas its pretty hard nosed. no money no service in some places... you pay up front or the helicopter doesnt leave the ground... there can be zero public funding and they can't afford to respond for free sometimes because they'd be bankrupt pretty quickly if they did...

St Johns didn't charge me upfront. I paid the bill afterwards. I guess a business would call in debt collectors.

Imagining a regime where user paid for SAR. I'd expect the cost of running the rescue chopper service would be several thousand dollars - potentially five figures per rescue (though it would be good to have real figures). Unless I thought I was in immediate danger of death/losing consciosness I'd be using the inreach to arrange a pickup with a local private chopper operator at a cost in the hundreds rather than thousands. I can see many others making similar decisions ... making private rescue arrangements, either ground or air based, to avoid a big SAR bill. Whilst that would certainly reduce SAR costs - I don't think the deprofessionalising of SAR that would result would be a good thing.

Interesting topic. St John Ambulance isn't fully user-pays, not even close. The charge of $98 is a part-charge that goes a little way towards recouping the costs. Most of the Ambulance service (circa 75%) is funded through either the DHBs or ACC. Also, there is no part charge for accident-related callouts (such as your sprained ankle running from the police) as the costs are totally covered by ACC. I would be against any full charging of rescue services, I think ultimately it would cost lives. I have heard the figure of $8000 an hour for the Westpac chopper to run. Most people would be bankrupted by the cost and it would lead to a burgeoning outdoor insurance industry that benefits nobody. Perhaps a part-charge would work, balanced between putting off the casual chancer trying to get a free ride out and still being affordable to those in a true emergency. However, despite the part-charge at St John, there is still plenty of improper ambulance use. Anyway may be a moot point soon. With improving outdoor communications, it may be the norm to have an inreach-type system so calls can be triaged better.

What about general health care? User pays? What about health care for other recreational sports and hobbies? It's a flying ambulance.

As someone who had to recently call on SAR (first time ever and legit need) I think it's a fantastic service staffed by professionals who genuinely care about what they do. Hard to make a cold, cost analysis as I feel it's just bloody great the service was there for me when I needed it. No judgement, no blame. If and when I can do something beyond offer a heart-felt thanks to these amazing people I definitely will. There's always folk who have stories of abuses of this kinda service but I'd like to think most rescues are just that - legitimate calls for help from folks in distress. For me, living in a country where we offer this service is a source of pride and pleasure. And yep I had a great discussion with the policeman who drove 2 hours out of his way to return me to my car and yes, some good advice was offered which I will remember in coming trips. For me I reckon we as a community educate and assist those of us and our visitors who want to experience our great outdoors as a way to encourage safe enjoyment. Better this than punitive approach in those instances where we feel a service is being abused.

westpac choppers are air ambulances, you're paying for the twin engines burning fuel and the extra medical staff and infrastructure some of the smaller local services are running relatively stock standard single engine helicopters. and fewer staff and smaller infrastructure...

Great discussion. A few random thoughts: @fdi4r978fg : >Like Saint John ambulance, if SAR were to charge a service fee for EVERY rescue operation could this potentionally make people more responsible in the back country? How much would you charge? One concern I'd have is that setting even a (low?) fee could encourage people to have an expectation of service. Suddenly it's no longer an emergency-only service so much as something people begin to expect to be there because they can't be bothered reasonably getting themselves out of trouble. Another concern is how charging would affect both professional services and voluntary services. Are volunteers as interested in being involved when they see the people they rescue paying someone else? If professional services can send an invoice, and especially if an insurance industry starts growing out of it, do they start getting lazy about saving costs? Do they always take the more expensive and potentially needless options because they get paid at the end of it anyway, by someone who (unlike Police and the RCCNZ) hasn't yet had a say in what service they're commissioning? @geeves : > Sar is largly funded out of ACC Someone can correct me but I think ACC only gets involved when there's an accident. Getting lost or suffering a medical condition whilst outside probably doesn't cut it. My understanding is that ACC has an arrangement where it chips in if a specific accident is part of the cause, but SAR is largely funded from the Police and Maritime NZ, depending on the class of callout. @TararuaHunter : > Perhaps the Police and Mt safety etc could be more forceful in giving a bollocking for rescues that are clearly due to shocking decision making. I'd agree but they'd need to be consistent. I've often seen officials criticise people in media who, once described, seemed to have done most things right and simply got unlucky. And, similarly, praise people who seemingly did a range of things hideously. And all around this, in modern social media times, armchair critics are constantly lynching subjects based on incorrect and out-of-context information. With the fragmented nature of SAR I presume it often comes down to who's running an operation at the time, what mood they're in and how keen they are to be quoted in media. Often these situations are very sensitive, especially when people have died. That's another significant change in the past decade though, too. Previously Search and Rescue ops were much less visible in the public eye. Maybe they were reported locally in the newspaper and the really big ones might have been reported nationally. Maybe outdoors people learned about more of the minor ones through organisations like FMC. In modern times they still get reported locally, but *everything* is online. Local rapidly becomes national, and everything gets shared. Media has strong incentives to sensationalise and give people things to read 24 hours a day, so as well as getting all the irrelevant news piped through from parent media companies in Australia, everyone also gets everyone else's local news. It's now common for local, relatively minor items, to be visible everywhere. It all gets shared, thousands of people like to comment and scream, often based on just a headline... which are often themselves unrepresentative of reality because journalists often don't get to write their own headlines. Regardless of whether the context is realistic, overall there's a much bigger social acceptance issue around SAR than there used to be. @PhillipW : > It's the one-way only nature of a PLB's communication that is an element in play here. It forces SAR into a 'one size fits all' response to every possible incident. Yes PLBs have changed the layout a lot. One of the big issues PLBs bring is an ability to transmit an emergency signal but without any guarantee of 2-way communication. Other satellite technology is already being carried by increasing numbers of people, giving methods of actually talking to rescuers and exchanging advice at least as well as mountain radios might have. I reckon it's a just matter of time before people's ubiquitous smart devices start being able to talk directly to satellites, and technology like PLBs, even if technically superior for certain things in absolute terms, becomes much less important in comparison. Hopefully when the Google internet balloons and Facebook satellites and whatever else are circling the earth, people in trouble can have a decent chat with authorities about what their problem is before everyone decides whether an elevated rescue operation is needed. Sometimes people just need some encouragement. @Ruahine : > St John Ambulance isn't fully user-pays, not even close. The charge of $98 is a part-charge that goes a little way towards recouping the costs. There's also an aspect of a choice which St John makes here, too. For comparison, the Wellington Free Ambulance --- in one of the few areas that hasn't yet been gobbled up by St John --- still manages to provide the service for free. It raises the extra funds it needs through other means. [ http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/10233304/Ambulance-services-are-similar-except-one-is-free ]

@izogi Sorry a bit off topic.. >There's also an aspect of a choice which St John makes here, too. For comparison, the Wellington Free Ambulance --- in one of the few areas that hasn't yet been gobbled up by St John --- still manages to provide the service for free. It raises the extra funds it needs through other means. Wellington Free provide a great service and it is fantastic that they can offer it for free. But it is not by "choice" that St John introduced a part-charge. Wellington Free operate in a relatively small and generally accessible part of the country and, if I remember correctly, have the support of a some very generous philanthropic donors. Trying to operate a nationwide ambulance service is another thing altogether. I very much doubt that anyone could offer a free ambulance service nationally with the current level of government funding.

Point taken.