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Ambulance service facing crisis
LOCAL health authorities are considering ways to restructure the city’s ambulance service in a bid to improve response times following a sharp rise in the number of non-emergency calls.
In 2011, non-emergency cases accounted for only about 17 percent of the calls received, the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission told a press conference yesterday.
Last year, of the 642,000 “trips” made by the city’s 600 ambulances, 40 percent were non-emergencies, it said.
Using high-tech medical vehicles effectively as taxis to transport people to and from health centers is putting enormous pressure on an already strained resource, the commission said.
It is necessary, therefore, to find a way to separate the two distinct arms of the ambulance service, it said.
While no formal plans or time frame have yet been agreed, the commission said it was likely that in the future a number of third-party companies will be contracted to handle non-emergency services.
The new system will mean separate teams of people, separate fleets of vehicles, separate phone numbers and separate pricing systems, it said.
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