Saturday 2 June 2007

Ambulance and Boundaries

I am not going to blame anybody until I get the facts right. In fact I am not going to blame any one, I just need enlightenment. Its not everyday that one calls the ambulance to one's home that one becomes an expert as to what to expect. The first time I called one was many years ago and everything went well. The ambulance arrived quite fast and my wife's nephew who is a dark skin fella forgave the personnel for talking Tamil to him.

My next experience with requesting for an ambulance service was on the day my brother died. My nephew, the son of arwah told me that he wanted to send his father to hospital again coz arwah didn't look good at all. He wanted to send arwah to the Kepala Batas hospital where he was hospitalised 2 days earlier.

He related how it was the first time he wanted to send arwah to the hospital. They called the relevant number and was answered quite promptly. They requested for an ambulance be sent coz they wanted to send arwah to the Kepala Batas hospital. When they gave their
address, there seemed to be a problem. They were told that the ambulance from Kepala Batas couldn't come to their house because they were living in the Bukit Mertajam District. The distance from their house to Kepala Batas is a little bit further than to Bukit Mertajam Hospital but Bukit Mertajam is notorious for her traffic crawl at anytime of the day.

They wanted to send arwah to Kepala Batas because they have friends working there so things could be made easier. It was suggested to them to take the patient to a few kilometres away into the boundary of Kepala Batas and the ambulance from Kepala Batas could service them. All this jurisdiction bullshit proved too much of a hassle so his children carried him into their car and drove him to Kepala Batas. Mind you, his condition was quite bad.

I have blogged about how stubborn arwah could be and he got discharged the next day night. The following morning on the day of his death, his condition was so bad that the children panicked and decided to send him to the hospital again. This time he couldn't be carried coz he really needed medical care if he were to be moved. Since he was previously warded into Kepala Batas Hospital, they wanted to take him there again but had to call for an ambulance to take him to the Bukit Mertajam Hospital first. Their plan was to transfer him to Kepala Batas from the Bukit Mertajam Hospital. He died en route to the Bukit Mertajam Hospital.

I do not blame the ambulance personnel for his death for they arrived very promptly and were good at their work. He was fated to die that day so he died that day. I accept that. What puzzles me is this boundary thing. Since when did they start to have boundaries and that no ambulance from one district could cross into another district to carry patients. Why is there a prize for the most number of patients ferried by each district or cost constraints or like someone said because of the privatisation of ambulance services?

I am in the dark about this. Is the ambulance service really privatised. Like in the case of where the shorter route may not be the faster route, and the sick is really sick, how do we plead for them to understand our predicament?

Anyone out there care to enlighten me a bit?

10 comments:

Apandi said...

Well, errr, out of my knowledge, this, but here in KL/PJ there are private ambulance service. Using Toyota Estima class ambulances...

As for the area covered, I believe its because of cost and availability. If I were to call for an HUKM ambulance to pick me up from Kelana Jaya to be admitted to HUKM, they will have Hospital Serdang pick me up instead. So, I guess they do have their methods.

Anonymous said...

hello again, cikgu..

something quite similar happened to me just last week. I called up Mcdonald's to send some burgers and shit only to be told by the operator they no longer provide delivery service to areas that takes more than 7 minutes away from their nearest franchise and that my place took them 9 minutes before. a mere 2 minutes. the reason given was time, not the distance. I mean, how stupid is that?

I had maggi kari instead.

Unknown said...

Apandi,
I agree with you but distance nowadays is relative. We don't count distance by kms but by time. Anyway I can understand that they must have a system except that they must be flexible in times of emergency.

Kerp,
The only way out is for you to move house to somewhere within 7 minutes of the nearest MacD

Anonymous said...

hahha...yea...ridiculous aint it?just 2 minutes away without having to move my sorry ass for a burger and fries.

Silent Me Not AUthor 1 said...

hi there,

SOrry about the passing of your brother. May he rests in peace.

As for the ambulance service, i think there is and there should be a system of delivery. if all ambulance acts according to the requests of the patient, we will havea lot of zig-zag and overlapping ambulances, which will be a waste of resources. If the hospital has to decide for each case whether it merits the extra mileage, then it will be another layer of bureaucracy. hence, the best is to decide on a jurisdiction, and divide the ambulance/hospital as such.

I would had suggested that the stubborn-ess to be put aside, and admit the patient into the nearest hospital for the immediate treatment. When the condition stabilize, then the patient can request to be transfered to a more familiar surrounding/doctors.

Sorry about the passing again. Hope your family is dealing with it alright.

Unknown said...

smna1,
I hope the abbreviation is alright with you. You do have a good point there. I am not going to argue with that but sometimes the patient need to get to hospital A because it is faster there coz no traffic jams but further in terms of distance, wouldn't precious time be wasted? This is not just a hypothetical situation, it is true in the case of my bro. No I don't blame anyone here. I accept ALLAH's wishes.
Thanks for the kind words. I truly appreciate it.

tokasid said...

Salam che'gu:

Memang polisi KKM rasanya, ambulans akan hantar pesakit ke hospital terdekat.Kalau ambulans yg di panggey dari BM maka ke BM lah di hantar.
Penghantaran ke hospital lain di buat setelah pesakit di masukkan ke hospital BM.Ini adalah prosedur KKM.Rawatan awalan di hospital pertama setelah stabil baru hantar ke hospital kedua.

Unknown said...

Doc,
Terima kasih atas penjelasan tu. Nasib baik saya tak pi marah sapa2, tapi saya rasa kena flexible la seperti yang saya komen about the shortest route not being the fastest. Mak Andeh saya dah discharge kelmarin tgh dan sekarang resting di rumah tapi masih susah jalan la. Surgeon kata kat dia yang fibroid dia bukan jenis yang besar tapi lebih kepada jenis kecil tapi banyak macam anggur. Dia tumbuh betindih2.

shortycolon said...

Dear KTN,

I was away with my family and unable to go through your blog.Just came back last Saturday.

Decided to go to your blog and to be updated with your brother's development. Was vey surprised to know that he has gone. May Allah be with him..

Take care! Be tough!

Unknown said...

Shortycolon,
Yes he passed away exactly 2 weeks ago. Thanks.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Blog Archive