Ambulances reached 83% of emergency cases within 11 minutes: MHA
SINGAPORE: Despite the high volume of emergency ambulance calls made in 2014, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) responded to 83 per cent of cases within 11 minutes, said Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs Amrin Amin on Friday (Jan 29).
That was an improvement over 2013, when it met that bar in 78 per cent of cases. The figures for 2015 are still being finalised and will be released in February, said Mr Amrin, in response to a question from Member of Parliament for Jurong GRC Tan Wu Meng.
SCDF’s Emergency Medical Services (EMS) responded to at least 155,000 calls in 2014, translating to more than 400 calls a day, he added.
UPWARD TREND IN NUMBER OF EMERGENCY CALLS
The Parliamentary Secretary also noted that the number of emergency ambulance calls have been increasing at a rate of about 5 per cent a year. “At this rate of growth, we can expect the number of calls to double in 15 years’ time,” he said.
“However, it will not be possible to grow our number of ambulances and increase our ambulance crew at the same rate. SCDF has adopted a number of strategies to cope with this trend.”
To meet the increasing demand, Mr Amrin said SCDF will start adopting a tiered response model to channel resources to areas of greatest need. For example, he said SCDF will deploy fire bikers in addition to emergency ambulances to ensure swift response to critical cases where time is of the essence.
“Equipped with Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) and other medical equipment, these fire bikers have been effective in ensuring that cardiac arrest patients receive prompt medical attention before the arrival of the emergency ambulance,” Mr Amrin said.
In event of industrial accidents or road traffic accidents, fire fighting vehicles may arrive earlier than an ambulance, he said. These fire fighters will be able to render initial assistance to the patient before the arrival of an emergency ambulance.
'CROWDSOURCING RESPONDERS'
He also said SCDF has been implementing initiatives to equip and train members of the public to render assistance for time-critical cases such as cardiac arrests. One of the initiatives, ‘Save-a-Live’, trains and mobilises volunteers to respond to cardiac arrest cases.
As part of the initiative, SCDF has begun installing AEDs in public spaces for use during medical emergencies. A mobile app has also been created to alert the Community First Responders should a case happen in their vicinity.
“Together, these strategies will allow SCDF to optimise its limited resources to deliver swift medical support to critical cases, and calibrate its response for non-critical cases,” Mr Amrin added.
- CNA/xk
well done!