Legislators must stop dithering and approve the new system for prioritising the use of ambulances - the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS). They can take the first step at the security panel meeting on April 13. Once they endorse the plan, the government can seek funding from lawmakers and implementation can begin.
What problem does the MPDS address? Say someone in your family is taken suddenly ill - perhaps the problem is even life-threatening. You call 999 for an ambulance. The government's current policy is to provide a free, first-call, first-serve service within 12 minutes in 92.5 per cent of the cases - no matter what condition the patient is in. Say someone calls one second before you with just a twisted ankle; that caller gets the ambulance first.
It has taken some years for the government to adopt a new policy - the MPDS, which prioritises ambulance responses, sending them to the most critical cases first in a reduced time of nine minutes. These include stroke and heart attacks, where the earlier the patient gets to hospital, the better the chance of survival.
Serious but non-life-threatening cases will continue to be met in 12 minutes; non-serious cases, like a twisted ankle, will be served within 20 minutes. These three-tier targets compare well to best practices around the world.
Not surprisingly, the result of the government's four-month consultation conducted last year showed overwhelming public support for prioritising ambulance responses in accordance with the degree of urgency of the calls. Ordinary folk understand the common sense of this system and the MPDS has the endorsement of doctors and hospitals as well.
The new MPDS would focus on retraining the dispatch staff working in the Fire Services Department's central call centre in Tsim Sha Tsui. They would operate under the new, medically approved protocol designed to increase the chances of saving lives. The current staff at the dispatch centre does a good job; there is no reason to think they cannot be trained to operate the MPDS well. The government's new policy is thus the critical chain in improving the effectiveness of the ambulance dispatch service. The faster an ambulance is sent out on a call, the earlier it will arrive, and the sooner the patient can reach a hospital - resulting in a better chance of effective medical help.