A computer virus infected The St John Ambulance service in New Zealand , that disabled the automated response system across the country last week. This results in staffs to allocate ambulances manually but it is still unknown if any emergency call-outs were affected.
Ambulance communications operations manager Alan Goudge said systems were back up and running yesterday morning after being attacked by the virus on Wednesday night .
"Anti-virus software protected the systems but as a result of the virus it impacted on some of the systems services, mainly those related to paging and radio. Back-up systems immediately took over when it was detected and the workload was managed manually," Mr Goudge said.
They are investigating the malware infection.
When St John receives a 111 emergency call an ambulance is alerted via a mobile data terminal (MDT) linked to a paging system.
The MDT, similar to an on-board computer, displays information about the emergency, including what and where it is.
But during last week's outage, ambulance officers were in some cases called via station phones and emergency information was relayed in person.
St John had not received any reports that emergency response times were affected, but Mr Goudge said the organisation was investigating the impact the disruption had on the service.
"Any responses of concern that result from the investigations will be followed up with patients and family involved," he said.
