THE Malaysian Emergency Response System (MERS) 999 should utilise the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to reduce delays in emergency services arriving where they are needed.
Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin said this in response to news of a man who died due to cardiac arrest after crashing his car in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah yesterday.
The ambulance dispatched by MERS999 reportedly arrived at the scene one hour after the emergency call was placed.
“In Klang Valley, users of RapidKL buses can track the arrival of their buses through a mobile app utilising GPS,” Chan noted in a statement.
“Elsewhere, and even here in Sabah, road users have been using GPS apps such as Google Maps and Waze to get to their destination, and they are also able to easily share locations using WhatsApp or Facebook.
“It is time that MERS999 make use of such technology to reduce delays in the existing MERS999 emergency services. If not, it may end up being redundant and people will be disillusioned with government machinery, which can only then be described as a failed Government.”
Chan, who is a DAP member, went on to criticise the emergency response system in Malaysia, calling it “so unreliable”, while describing how some people have reached a stage that they would rather turn to an e-hailing service such as a Grab ride, rather than call an ambulance in the event of a medical emergency.
“With such an unacceptable delay of up to an hour just to dispatch an ambulance to the scene, one wonders whether we are still stuck in a third world where the Government does not even care about the lives of the people,” he pointed out.
“This is clearly shameful on the part of the emergency services as the public would see them as being useless to society.”
Chan also noted that this is not the first time someone had perished due to a delay in emergency services arriving at the scene of the emergency.
“I had last year raised in parliament the issue of the delay in emergency response after a MERS999 call was made by the public. A family of four perished in a fire in Taman Hungab as a result of the delay in arrival by the fire brigade,” he remarked.
“There are reasons why emergency services are deemed part of a country’s strategic asset as they play a role no different from that of a country’s defence in that it is supposed to save lives.”
As such, he urged MERS999 to provide a detailed report on the delay in arrival of the ambulance and medical services to the scene yesterday.
“Is it due to the lack of the exact location? Is it due to the lack of ambulances? Is it due to lack of manpower? Or is it due to sheer nonchalance and lack of the sense of urgency by the call centre?” he asked.
“A life could have been saved if the emergency medical service had been dispatched and had arrived much earlier.” – May 6, 2022
