WE THANK Ms Esther Lu for her letter last Tuesday ('Ambulance call: Every second counts in an emergency').
She mentioned that precious seconds had been wasted when her initial call to the Singapore Civil Defence Force's (SCDF) operations centre on Nov 29 for an ambulance was routed to a voice recording. She also claimed that had her initial call been answered immediately by the operator, an ambulance would have been dispatched sooner.
According to our records, SCDF operations centre received an emergency ambulance call at about 1.22pm that day. The caller said a man in his 40s walking along Marine Parade Road required immediate medical attention. An ambulance was immediately dispatched and it arrived at the scene within 11 minutes of the call.
Between 1.20pm and 1.25pm, our operations centre experienced an unusually high volume of emergency calls. As a result, all our operators were engaged during this period. Calls that could not be attended to by an operator were automatically diverted to a voice recording as per established procedures. As soon as an operator became available, the calls would immediately be answered according to their position in the queue. On average, the waiting time in such an uncommon situation is 10 seconds before an operator answers.
In Ms Lu's case, our telephone records indicate that there was one telephone call that had been diverted to the voice recording between 1.20pm and 1.25pm. However, the caller hung up less than 10 seconds after the call was diverted.
We appreciate Ms Lu's feedback and would like to assure her
and the public that we take all calls to our 995 emergency hotline
seriously. This is why we strive to answer them within 10 seconds as
time is of the essence during an emergency. However, there may be
instances when, due to a surge in the volume of emergency calls, an
operator may not be able to answer a call immediately. Callers should
remain patient and wait for their calls to be answered.
-- ST Forum (13/12/2010)