Fewer ambulances on the roads – more service calls

Ambulance, Woman charged with stabbing, School roofAmbulance.Photo: Norway Today Media

Since 2002, there are 69 fewer ambulances on Norwegian roads despite the fact that the workload has increased by 42 percent.

– Ambulance service is becoming increasingly important. Nevertheless, there has been a reduction in the number of ambulances around the country, says the head of Ambulance Association in Delta, Ola Yttre to the newspaper VG.

According to Statistics Norway the number of service calls made in 2002 was 458,000, while in 2014 the figure had risen to 665,000.

During this period there have been 69 fewer ambulances on the roads, a reduction from 597 to 528. Meanwhile, the Norwegian population has increased from 4.5 to 5.1 million.

– The Health Minister has previously stated that the ambulance service will be strengthened, but is the plan that fewer ambulances will handle the increase in service calls?, asks Yttre.

The recommended response time for ambulances in Norway is set for 12 minutes in urban areas and 25 minutes in rural areas. The goal is that 90 percent of all service calls are to be made within this amount of time.

Yttre wants statutory response times, but State Secretary Anne Grethe Erland of the Ministry of Health says this will be difficult for rural districts.

– The Committee for Emergency Medicine has recommended not to establish a required demands on response times for ambulance service.

The reason is that the requirements for response times will be difficult to comply with in many parts of the rural districts in Norway, she says.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today