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August 8, 2014

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Ambulance service in crisis as docs depart

A HUGE shortage of qualified medical professionals has left Shanghai’s ambulance service stretched almost to breaking point, an industry insider said yesterday.

Despite having more than 600 ambulances, there are currently fewer than 180 emergency doctors working in the city, said Guan Min, spokesman for the Shanghai Medical Emergency Center.

“The number should be at least twice that,” he said.

“We have plenty of ambulances, but not enough doctors.”

With the arrival of summer, the center has seen a steep rise in the number of 120 (emergency) calls it receives.

“At the moment, we’re getting between 1,000 and 1,100 calls a day, which is about 10 or 15 percent more than usual,” Guan said.

When calls come in to the center, the first thing the call handlers do is to prioritize them in terms of urgency.

“If there is a real emergency, we will dispatch an ambulance with a doctor on board as quickly as we can,” Guan said.

“But about 40 percent of the calls we receive are for non-emergencies, so those people sometimes have to wait a little longer.”

While the glut in calls over the summer season has put extra pressure on resources, the chronic problem faced by the ambulance service remains the lack of trained medics, Guan said.

“We are becoming increasingly reliant on doctors and paramedics working overtime to cover the shortfall so we can provide a service,” he said.

“On some occasions we even have to call on admin staff to help out as drivers and stretcher bearers,” he said.

Zhou Quan, director of the Xuhui District branch of the emergency center, agreed.

“The heavy workload, the low pay, and the increased amount hassle from patients and their families mean that doctors simply don’t want to work on the ambulances,” he said.

“A lot of young doctors these days see ambulance work just as a way to get some experience before taking up a position in a hospital,” he said, adding that few medics stay in the job for more than five years.

“Six doctors resigned just last month. So now, we’re looking as far afield as Hainan in the south and Heilongjiang in the north for qualified people to replace them,” he said.

Nowhere to go

Shanghai Daily yesterday spent the day with a local ambulance team headed by doctor Shao Ling.

The Anhui Province native said she has been working as part of an emergency team for about 12 months and plans to stay for another two years, after which she will continue with her postgraduate studies.

“The problem is that once you’re on an ambulance, there are no opportunities for professional development,” she said.

“The doctor who mentored me as a newcomer recently quit the profession. He’d been working on the ambulances for 10 years,” she said.

The current salary for an ambulance doctor in Shanghai is about 5,000 yuan (US$810) a month, and there are few opportunities for promotion.

Working alongside Shao yesterday were driver Lu Jun and stretcher bearer Sun Yuefei. Lu has been in the business for about eight years, while Sun is a newcomer.

Ambulance personnel are required to work for at least four years as a stretcher bearer before they can become a driver. The pay for both positions is less than 3,000 yuan a month.




 

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