THE ambulance service is finding it increasingly harder to honour its pledge to be giving assistance in emergencies within 10 minutes.
The Fire Services Department revealed yesterday it had been able to do so in only 89.5 per cent of the 317,749 emergency calls received last year. In 1994, the ambulance service had met the target 91.7 per cent of the time and in 1993 in 92.5 per cent of cases.
In some extreme cases the ambulances were more than half an hour late, Director of Fire Services Peter Cheung said.
'This is due to bad weather conditions and serious traffic congestion in the New Territories,' he said.
The department has applied for additional resources to strengthen its ambulance service as recommended in a consultancy report, completed last August, which says the department is short by 31 ambulances and 10 motorcycles. To man this fleet, an extra 300 staff will be needed.
It also suggested setting up four new ambulance depots - in North Point, Sheung Wan, Kwai Chung and Kowloon Tong - to meet the 10-minute target.
