St John is a major international charity that provides first aid, health care and support services in more than 35 countries around the world. Together we make up the Order of St John, which is accredited to the United Nations.

St John organisations provide a variety of services in their countries, each having their own specialised activities to meet the needs of the communities it serves. These services include quality first aid care and training, ambulance services, patient transport, community health care, hospitals, and programmes for the training and development of communities. 

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, St John organisations worldwide have continued to provide vital support to struggling communities. As a global organisation, we affect the lives of millions of people each and every day.

While in some parts of the world we are seeing positive signs for the pandemic, other countries are seeing a surge in new cases and currently facing a third or fourth wave – despite vaccination programs being rolled out.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a fast evolving and significant challenge to global health systems. This unfortunately has led to a health crisis, resulting in health care resources being completely inundated. 

Throughout these troublesome times, St John organisations across the globe have truly stepped up and provided crucial support and relief to its countries’ National Health Emergency Response. 

Below are only a few examples of how St John volunteers, staff and members in the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific have responded to the pandemic.

• St John Papua New Guinea has established a 296 bed COVID isolation field hospital, to provide isolation and care facilities for positive cases.
• St John New Zealand ensures free health transportation remains in place for those who are vulnerable and have high health needs.
• St John Hong Kong assisted the Government testing programme, where over 4,600 people received swab testing, conducted by 57 St John medical, nursing and ambulance personnel.
• St John England is a core partner to the National Health Response and has onboarded more than 30,000 new volunteers to assist in vaccination roll out across the country.
• St John Australia has provided assistance at testing stations, transported thousands of suspected and confirmed COVID patients and distributed a significant amount of PPE to testing sites, hospitals, GP clinics and aged care facilities.
• St John USA volunteers continue to make masks for distribution to nursing homes and local clinics.
• St John Kenya runs daily patient transport to hospitals and volunteers have been at the forefront in promoting safe handwashing techniques amongst the public.
• The St John Eye Hospital is continuing to treat patients, both emergency and non-emergency cases, while adhering to strict infection control measures.
• St John Malaysia volunteers produced more than 300,000 face shields for frontline workers, and the organisation donated 350,000 pieces of PPE and 250 intubation boxes to 199 Government hospitals, clinics and agencies all over Malaysia.
• St John Canada is helping at isolation sites and screening clinics, providing PPE and first aid to homeless people, and delivering food to people isolating.
• St John Northern Ireland’s main focus is on patient transfer in support of the overwhelmed statutory ambulance services.

St John prides itself on being a charitable organisation that responds to the needs of the people it serves, which explains the huge diversity of activities from organisation to organisation. St John is run and staffed by people who are passionate about serving their communities and caring for others – this has been exemplified by the abundance of work our people have done throughout the pandemic.

The fight against COVID-19 is not over yet and there are still countries battling every day. Hopefully, communities around the world feel a sense of comfort that should the COVID situation escalate, St John people will be there to step in and provide necessary support.

To ensure our Victoria-based volunteers and staff can remain out in the community providing support please donate.