Coronavirus: residents forced to wait up to 26 hours for ambulances as demand soars and paramedics fall ill in Hong Kong
- Nearly 270 paramedics are off work after becoming infected, while more than 400 others deemed close contacts are in isolation
- Fire chief, who oversees the fleet, says delays have never been this long before and too many residents are requesting service
Residents have been forced to wait up to 26 hours for an ambulance to take them to hospital in Hong Kong as demand soars during the escalating Covid-19 crisis and manpower levels suffer after hundreds of paramedics fell ill with the virus.
Director of Fire Services Joseph Leung Wai-hung appealed to residents who tested positive but had mild or no symptoms to avoid calling ambulances.
“Frontline manpower is very tight at the moment,” said Leung, who oversees the city’s fleet of ambulances. “And for Covid-19 cases, they take us two to three times longer to handle them, so it further lowers the circulation rate [of vehicles].
For emergency ambulance calls, the goal is to respond within 12 minutes. The Fire Services Department pledged to achieve the target in 92.5 per cent of all such calls. Official figures showed paramedics arrived within the window in 92.4 per cent of 715,194 calls last year.
“Our met-target has hit a record low to 23.3 per cent. It means we could meet the target in less than one case out of four,” the department said, adding that in one case, a patient waited more than 26 hours for an ambulance.
As of 4pm on Saturday, 650 patients were still waiting for ambulance service.
“There may be some cases where a seriously ill patient won’t be able to have immediate ambulance services or receives delayed treatment, which could result in serious consequences,” the director said.
Only 182 ambulances were operating at 5pm, down from the usual 260, a drop of 30 per cent.
Hong Kong to discharge Covid-19 patients faster, more than 17,000 cases reported
A total of 268 paramedics have been infected with Covid-19 and 410 were in isolation after being deemed close contacts of other cases, according to the department.
“Very valuable life-saving resources should be reserved for really critical cases with urgent need for medical treatment,” Leung said.
As of Friday, more than 60,000 residents who tested positive were waiting to be admitted to hospital or community isolation facilities. Health authorities have provided guidelines on how to minimise the risk of infecting others and ways to treat cases suffering only mild symptoms.
