SINGAPORE - The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) has warned that there may be delays in the response time for ambulances, especially for less critical cases, after the average daily number of 995 calls spiked in the first week of December.
It said on Facebook on Dec 7 that it received nearly 750 “995” emergency medical services (EMS) calls a day on average in the first week of December, about 100 more than the daily average between July and September.
The December number is about 200 more than in the same period before the pandemic.
The SCDF responded to 256,837 EMS calls in 2022, or about 704 a day, according to its website. That represented a 20.2 per cent increase in EMS calls compared with 2021. The jump was attributed partly to a surge of calls associated with the various Covid-19 waves in 2022.
The SCDF said almost 5 per cent of the calls made to the hotline are non-emergencies.
It previously said that since 2017, it has been actively trying to raise public awareness about calling 995 only for emergencies.
The number of non-emergency calls increased from 9,050 in 2021 to 11,538 in 2022, higher than the 10,534 in 2019 before the pandemic. The SCDF attributed the spike in part to the increase in Covid-19-related cases that were assessed to be non-emergencies by its paramedics on site.
The number of false alarm calls made to the 995 hotline rose in 2022 to 6,089, from 5,598 in 2021.
To manage the current increase in calls, the SCDF is redeploying ambulances to areas with higher rates of medical emergency calls.
It did not disclose which areas the ambulances will be redeployed to in its Facebook post.
This is in addition to other measures already in place to make the best use of emergency ambulances. For example, from 2023 onwards, the SCDF’s 995 operations centre assesses emergency calls and sends out ambulances only when they are deemed to be actual emergencies.
“The SCDF needs to continue prioritising our limited resources for life-threatening medical emergencies,” it said.
“Our 995 call takers, paramedics and front-liners are doing their best to provide swift conveyance to hospital for people with life-threatening and emergency medical conditions.”
The SCDF advised the public to go to a nearby clinic for medical advice and not to call 995, unless someone has a life-threatening or emergency medical condition.
Examples of such emergencies include breathlessness, difficulty in speech or drooping of the face, and drowsiness or confusion, it said.
The Facebook post comes after a collaboration between the SCDF and popular humour site SGAG, where a two-minute music video was posted on YouTube on Oct 27.
The jingle, titled What’s Your Emergency?!, includes examples of what is considered an emergency, and asks the public to think twice before making such calls.
