Brendon David Morris, Executive Director of Ambulance Service, and Ali Darwish, Assistant Executive Director, during a press conference, yesterday.
DOHA: Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Ambulance Service, which receives more than 700 calls on average daily, has seen an increase of 12 percent in the call volume in 2017.
A total of 269,053 calls were received in 2017 by the Ambulance Service compared to 239,782 in 2016. Among all cases the Ambulance Service attended 21.6 percent trauma cases due to road accidents and injuries as well as 78.4 medical emergencies such as cardiac problems, stroke and other conditions, says Brendon David Morris, Executive Director of Ambulance Service.
“The Ambulance Service makes sure that it is prepared to serve everybody in Qatar with access to effective care, when they need an emergency response. We take in patients to the right facility depending on their condition. We also take patients in the community to their closest general hospital, where that is appropriate,” he said addressing a press conference yesterday.
He was accompanied by Ali Darwish, Assistant Executive Director of the Ambulance Service.
Ambulance Service reaches to 93.29 percent of cases within ten minutes, inside Doha. And 97.47 percent of cases outside cases within 15 minutes.
“Over the years the country has seen new emergency ambulances that are narrow and serving inside Doha. Because of this, there had been a great impact in our ability to move through traffic and to get to places quicker and have various improvements,” said Morris.
The frontline ambulances are staffed with two paramedics , both are qualified and medically trained and they work as a team.
“In addition we have a more advance level of paramedics in Qatar, who support the ambulances and they are called as critical care paramedics. They support the paramedics in the regular ambulances with patients in more serious condition,” said Morris.
Two important initiatives Emergency Vehicle Pre-Emption System (EVPS) and ‘Know The Five to Save Life’ campaign introduced in the past has significantly contributed in enhancing the Ambulance Service.
The EVPS is a GPS based system on the traffic lights which receives signals from the emergency vehicle unit. These devices request green lights hundreds of meters ahead the arrival of the emergency vehicle. The person who drives the ambulance has no control over the system but it works through sensor.
“It helps to reduce response time to emergencies and enhance traffic safety. We are working together with Ashghal — Public Works Authority and all the ambulances in the city will be able to have this system over the coming months. It’s being done as part of a bigger controlled system, so we have to do it gradually without distracting the whole traffic flow,” said Morris.
He also said that vehicles on the road give way to ambulances as result of the awareness campaign. However urged people not to follow an ambulance as it could lead to accidents.
“One problem does remain is chasing the ambulances. Very often we see people follow the ambulances. It’s is very dangerous as the ambulance may stop at any time and it could lead to accidents,” he said.
HMC’s Ambulance Service at present has a fleet of 338 different types of emergency vehicles. Besides the main ambulance station, there are 30 dispatch spots across the country.
