Probe revealed ambulance despatched to accident scene

Director: Probe revealed ambulance despatched to accident scene


http://www.thesundaily.my/node/171730
Posted on 27 December 2006 - 03:09am Print PETALING JAYA (Dec 26, 2006): The Selangor Health Department's investigations revealed that Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Klang had despatched an ambulance immediately after receiving a call about an accident near the Batu Tiga toll (Elite Highway) on Dec 13.
In a statement today, Dr Ang Kim Teng, the department's health director, commended Zara Davies Abdul Rahman for her civic consciousness in assisting the injured victim but said there were some erroneous information in her account of her encounter with the hospital.
Two weeks ago, businesswoman Zara said she witnessed an accident on the highway and spent more than an hour waiting for an ambulance from the hospital, which allegedly never turned up. The accident victim, Mohd Yusry, died on the way to the hospital in a car.
Ang said investigations revealed the following:
•The hospital's call centre received a call for ambulance at 1.52pm on Dec13;

•Subsequently, a call was made to Zara by the ambulance crew at 1.57pm to clarify the location of the accident. The ambulance was despatched immediately after that;

•At 2.06pm, the centre received another call from Zara enquiring whether an ambulance had been despatched. The centre specifically informed her that it was already on its way and will take some time to arrive due to heavy traffic and the distance from the hospital. This conversation was recorded in the centre's record system.

•At 2.36pm, Zara again made a call to the centre requesting for directions to the hospital. She was given the assistance and arrived at the emergency department at 2.44 pm. The closed circuit TV recording showed the staff on duty had promptly pushed a trolley and followed behind Zara to fetch the victim from the car.

"From the above, it is clear that we have promptly responded to the call for ambulance, and it is not true that Zara waited for more than an hour for the ambulance.
"It was also not true that she was told that the ambulance had not been sent as our audio recordings indicated otherwise," Ang said.
"We hope this clarification will lay to rest the allegations by Zara on the failure of the ambulance to arrive as she had already left the scene before the ambulance arrived.
"The Klang Hospital and other hospitals in the state would continue to strive for speedy response to all ambulance calls bearing in mind that distance and traffic conditions sometimes hamper our efforts to reach the scene speedily," he added.
A check with Universiti Malaya Medical Centre's (UMMC) revealed that it only takes three to five minutes for an ambulance to be mobilised after receiving an emergency call from the public
A trauma and emergency centre official said if the hospital received a distress call from within the areas covered by the hospital, an ambulance will be despatched immediately.
"Our standard is that we try to reach the accident scene within 15 minutes or 30 minutes, the longest for us to respond to an emergency as it will also depend on the traffic.
"The UMMC has four ambulances and areas mostly covered by the hospital are Petaling Jaya, Bricksfield, until the National Mosque and Damansara, but if an accident occurred beyond the areas we covered, we will still try to render help," he told theSun today.
Three months ago, the Health Ministry's director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican had said any ambulance response time that was longer than 15 minutes was unacceptable.