5831. PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS: Ambulances on the road.

PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS: Ambulances on the road.
Sometimes you need to be prepared and take a shot of the ambulance from the car window.

In Singapore, the SCDF (Singapore Civil Defence Force) has 92 ambulances. There is an ageing population which increases the demand. 

1. Ambulances cannot leave hospitals until after the patients they had conveyed have been triaged by hospital staff and the handover is completed. Patients on ambulance trolleys inside the ED. (Emergency Department).

2. Do not dial 995, the EMS (Emergency Medical Services) number unless it is a real emergency.

3. Dial 1777 for private ambulance service. SCDF charges $274 for non-emergency cases taken to the hospital. Private ambulance charges are $90 - $300 to ferry someone to the hospital ED during office hours. $120 - $500 after office hours.

4. The SCDF ambulance arrives within 11 minutes for 80 per cent of calls. There may be delays for less urgent calls if the demand for ambulance is high at the time.

5. Call 995 when someone suffers a heart attack, seizure, breathlessness, loss of consciousness, excessive bleeding, major trauma and stroke.  NOT toothache, constipation

6. It takes about 30 minutes for the ambulance to get to the scene, assess the situaiton and return to its base should it find NO injured party (e.g. people who call for ambulance but were absent on arrival of ambulance).

7. In 2023, SCDF receives an average of 676 calls a day, so every non-emergency or false alarm "takes away an available resource for an emergency".

REFERENCE: Sunday Times, A3.
25 Feb 2024

UPDATE:

https://2010vets.blogspot.com/2024/04/5831-photography-tips-ambulances-on-road.html