WE THANK Ms Esther Lu for her letter last Tuesday ('Ambulance
call: Every second counts in an emergency').
She mentioned that precious seconds had been wasted when her
initial call to the Singapore Civil Defence Force's (SCDF)
operations centre on Nov 29 for an ambulance was routed to a voice
recording. She also claimed that had her initial call been answered
immediately by the operator, an ambulance would have been
dispatched sooner.
According to our records, SCDF operations centre received an
emergency ambulance call at about 1.22pm that day. The caller said
a man in his 40s walking along Marine Parade Road required
immediate medical attention. An ambulance was immediately
dispatched and it arrived at the scene within 11 minutes of the
call.
Between 1.20pm and 1.25pm, our operations centre experienced an
unusually high volume of emergency calls. As a result, all our
operators were engaged during this period. Calls that could not be
attended to by an operator were automatically diverted to a voice
recording as per established procedures. As soon as an operator
became available, the calls would immediately be answered according
to their position in the queue. On average, the waiting time in
such an uncommon situation is 10 seconds before an operator
answers.
In Ms Lu's case, our telephone records indicate that there was
one telephone call that had been diverted to the voice recording
between 1.20pm and 1.25pm. However, the caller hung up less than 10
seconds after the call was diverted.
We appreciate Ms Lu's feedback and would like to assure her and
the public that we take all calls to our 995 emergency hotline
seriously. This is why we strive to answer them within 10 seconds
as time is of the essence during an emergency. However, there may
be instances when, due to a surge in the volume of emergency calls,
an operator may not be able to answer a call immediately. Callers
should remain patient and wait for their calls to be
answered.
-- ST Forum (13/12/2010)