SCDF to take up to 20 minutes to respond to minor emergency cases from July 31

SINGAPORE - From July 31, 995 callers can expect a wait time of up to 20 minutes for an ambulance if a call is “assessed to be of a lower acuity”, said the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) on July 4.

Cases of lower acuity are deemed minor emergency cases, said SCDF. Examples of these include minor or superficial burns, or low blood sugar, where the patient is still alert.

This was announced at the SCDF workplan seminar held at Ngee Ann Polytechnic on July 4.

SCDF said there are currently about 12 minor emergency calls a day, and each of these cases takes around 75 minutes on average to fulfil, from the ambulance being activated, to taking the patient to hospital.

With the new minor emergency calls policy, it could take up to 95 minutes.

SCDF said the new longer response time when handling minor emergency calls will allow it to have the flexibility to prioritise emergency medical services resources and ambulances.

However, SCDF said the safety of its patients remains its top priority.

For instance, for medical cases that do not require urgent care, if SCDF receives a second call about a patient’s condition worsening, it will dispatch an emergency ambulance to get to the patient more quickly.

The number of

non-emergency 995 calls increased

from 9,050 in 2021, to 11,538 in 2022 – higher than the 10,534 in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Straits Times reported in 2023 that 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.

From 2023, the SCDF’s 995 operations centre has assessed emergency calls and sends out ambulances only when the calls are deemed to be actual emergencies.

For calls that are assessed to be non-emergencies, such as muscle cramp, toothache or cough, an ambulance will not be dispatched.

On the new measure for minor emergencies, Warrant Officer 2 (WO2) Cyrene Ong, 47, an emergency medical services operations specialist, said: “I think it will greatly help since we have very limited resources. I hope that with this new initiative, we can really prioritise and allocate (the resources) to those who really need it more.”

Speaking to ST at the seminar, she recalled an incident in 2022 when a woman called 995 over a non-emergency case.

At the accident and emergency department of a hospital, she had received a referral letter to go to another hospital. She tried to call for a taxi to take her there, but failed to get one, so she called 995 instead.

When SCDF paramedics arrived, they realised it was a non-emergency case.

They explained to her that she could not be taken to the other hospital by ambulance as her case was not life-threatening.

WO2 Ong said the woman’s referral letter did not state that she needed to be urgently transferred to that hospital.

But she insisted, and SCDF officers spent a considerable amount of time trying to reason with her and telling her that the ambulance service should not be abused.

The paramedics also offered to help the patient call for a taxi or to engage a non-emergency ambulance, said WO2 Ong.

In the end, to avoid wasting more of the paramedics’ time, the woman was eventually transferred by ambulance.

WO2 Ong said: “I felt that it was really challenging for us to persuade and convince the patient to understand our position and the importance of effectively and efficiently using emergency ambulances only for life-threatening emergencies.”