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The Fire Services Department aims to dispatch ambulance within 12 minutes from the time of call to the arrival of an ambulance
at the street address. In 2018, the department targeted to meet the response time in 92.5% of all emergency calls. In 2017, the
overall performance in responding to emergency ambulance calls was 2.6% above the target of 92.5%.

problems as long as they try to save only, as time is always crucial when it comes to medical
lives in good faith,” he says. emergency such as resuscitating a patient of cardiac arrest.
Health services sector lawmak- “A patient’s death rate increases by seven to 10 per cent
er Joseph Lee Kok-long agrees that if AED is performed one minute late. If it takes 10 minutes
with the introduction of Good for an ambulance to arrive, there is little chance for the pa-
Samaritan Law, people with basic tient to be revived,” he says.
first-aid skills will be more confi-

Joseph dent to perform emergency treat-
Lee Kok-long ment on strangers. But Lee says
the progress of legislation “is still
in stage zero”. He adds that the legislative process is com-
plicated and may take years to complete.

The Double Track Approach
Axel Siu Yuet-chung, former chairman of
the Resuscitation Council of Hong Kong, says
the government should adopt what he calls,
‘Double Track Approach’, while waiting for
the lengthy legislation process to complete. He
suggests making first-aid training as compulsory
courses in schools.
Siu points out patients in need of urgent Axel
treatment cannot rely on ambulance service Siu Yuet-chung

Edited by Edith Chung