Forum: Private ambulance calls should be better screened

We recently called for an ambulance to take my elderly father with chronic medical conditions to the hospital. We decided to call 1777 for a private ambulance, as we wanted to send him back to the same hospital he had recently been discharged from.

We informed the 1777 call operator that my father was having a fever and was not rousable, and about the hospital we wanted to send him to. The operator then informed us of the charges and asked if we accepted them, which we did as no alternative was offered.

We were also told there was a cancellation charge, but no further details were given. 

When the ambulance driver and paramedic arrived, we showed them our father’s blood pressure record over the last few hours, which was low. After rechecking my father’s blood pressure, which was still very low, they told us that they could not accept cases with a systolic blood pressure reading of less than 100mmHg and declined to take him to hospital. They told us to call 995 instead.

However, we were still charged the full rate of the ambulance fee of almost $300 with goods and services tax – despite the fact that it was the ambulance staff who cancelled the booking, not us.

The ambulance staff said they were not aware of my father’s condition and were only told that he had an infection by the call operator. They also denied any responsibility, saying they were only third-party providers that took cases accepted by the call operator on their behalf.

This is an unreasonable and unfair business practice, preying on vulnerable consumers in their time of need.

If there are specific exclusion criteria for cases that can be ferried by a private ambulance, shouldn’t the 1777 call operator have made this clear upfront?

Calls to 995 are screened by call operators and non-emergency cases are diverted to call 1777. Why aren’t the calls to 1777 screened properly and diverted to 995 if deemed an emergency? 

Koh Yen Cheng