Coronavirus: Hong Kong residents wait up to 39 hours for ambulance as health care system buckles under strain of Covid-19 cases
- Overall percentage on hitting 12-minute target for response times has improved from all-time low revealed at the weekend
- But the longest waiting time hit one day and 15 hours, significantly more than the 26 hours reported on Saturday
However, the overall percentage on hitting a set target for response times has improved slightly.
In a reply to the Post on Monday night, the Fire Services Department said its ambulances had responded to three in 10, or 29.8 per cent, emergency calls within the 12-minute target as of Sunday. That was better than the all-time low of 23.3 per cent announced by the department’s chief on Saturday.
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Bodies pile up at hospitals and mortuaries as Hong Kong records 34,466 new Covid-19 cases
But the longest waiting time hit one day and 15 hours, significantly more than the 26 hours reported by Director of Fire Services Joseph Leung Wai-hung on Saturday. On Sunday, 175 emergency ambulances were on duty.
The Omicron-fuelled coronavirus outbreak has placed the city’s public health system under severe strain, with patients waiting to be taken to hospital facing long delays. The daily Covid-19 caseload on Monday soared to 34,466 – a 32 per cent increase in a day – with 87 deaths recorded in 24 hours.
Paramedics arrived within the 12-minute window in 92.4 per cent of 715,194 calls last year. But since the fifth wave hit in late December, hundreds of paramedics have been infected with Covid-19, resulting in serious understaffing, while the number of calls has increased significantly.
Yanny Ng was one of the desperate residents who found the delays unacceptable. She said her grandmother in her 90s had suffered breathing difficulties and had a fever of 39.5 degrees Celsius (103.1 degrees Fahrenheit) at home late on Sunday night. Her whole family returned positive results on rapid antigen tests.
She said paramedics only turned up at noon on Monday, about 10 hours after the family initially called for help. Recalling the long wait, she said she felt helpless as her grandmother’s fever did not subside despite taking medicine.
“She has been on prolonged bed rest and her condition didn’t allow her to take taxi rides … What could I do other than call 999 again?” she said, adding that her grandmother’s condition had stabilised in hospital.
A mother who wished to remain anonymous said her three-month-old daughter had turned pale and developed a high fever while waiting at home for 14 hours for an ambulance.
She said during the delay, she put her daughter in a lukewarm bath several times to help cool her fever before an ambulance arrived at noon on Sunday. All three members of the family tested positive on rapid antigen tests.
The woman said she understood the pressure paramedics faced and hoped detailed guidelines would be released for Covid-19 patients who had developed symptoms.
The British government, for example, released guidelines on the medicines people could take to treat specific symptoms such as fever and cough, with videos showing steps they could take to relieve breathlessness.
The Covid-19 surge might have also affected non-emergency ambulance transfer services, including moving patients between hospitals.
A man who did not want to be identified said his father-in-law had developed fluid in his abdomen after undergoing pelvic surgery in Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital in Tai Po last week. The doctor advised him to be transferred to North District Hospital for follow-up treatment but the wait was more than a day.
In desperation, the son-in-law said he would drive the patient to the other hospital, but his request was denied. He was told by hospital staff that medical equipment and paramedics were necessary to ensure patient safety during transfers.
Officials have appealed to residents who test positive for Covid-19 but have mild or no symptoms to avoid calling ambulances.
