• MutantTailThing@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    60
    ·
    5 hours ago

    Someone once said an ambulance isn’t your personal taxi to the hospital, like my brother in fuck what do you think it is then?

    • waigl@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      4 hours ago

      At the risk of getting myself a rain of downvotes here:

      An ambulance is an expensive and somewhat rare mini-ER on wheels that’s designed to help a small team of expensive and somewhat rare specialists stabilize a dangerous condition on a patient until it reaches a hospital. Since it is important to keep those somewhat rare vehicles and teams in reserve for when they are suddenly urgently needed, you really shouldn’t use one as a taxi to the hospital if whatever your condition is doesn’t call for that.

      (Asking enormous sums of money of the patient for the privilege is IMHO still wrong. The decision to use an ambulance or not should not be based on whether you can can easily part with a couple thousand dollars.)

      • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        2 hours ago

        So triage the issue remotely and send the appropriate response.

        Stubbed toe? Reimburse a ride share.

        Fractured arm? EMT in a lower cost van.

        Urgent trauma? Full rig and EMT crew.

      • Derpenheim@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        2 hours ago

        There is NOTHING expensive about the people in the back of that ambulance. They get paid less than I do working at a grocery store.

        • waigl@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 hour ago

          There is in the sense that they cannot easily be replaced. Whether they actually get paid appropriately for that is another story.

      • jtrek@startrek.website
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        22
        ·
        3 hours ago

        I don’t believe there is a problem of people needlessly calling ambulances.

        If that was the case, the appropriate response would not be to charge everyone bank breaking fees for it.

          • jtrek@startrek.website
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            3 hours ago

            If that’s the case, I imagine it would be better to charge people for frivolous use, rather than charge everyone. Or come up with a system where dispatch sends something else for non-emergency, if you can tell.

            I’m not a policy expert, but the current system is bad for everyone.

      • greenskye@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        3 hours ago

        I’d be more ok with this if the expensive specialists on board were actually making bank instead of really low wages.