90% of ambulances dispatched in Tokyo are for non emergencies
Chauffeur ambulances drain funds (2nd article)
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"My wife is about to have a baby. We need you to come over here." Within seconds of the 119 emergency call, a three-member ambulance crew was alerted and then dispatched to the caller's home in Tokyo.
But upon arrival, the crew didn't find a hysterical wife in labor with an equally hysterical husband at her side. Instead, a very calm couple was waiting at their door, overnight bags in hand.
"The due date is tomorrow," the husband cheerily explained. "Her labor pains haven't started yet, so we'd like you to get us to the hospital tonight."
And so the ambulance crew duly chauffeured the couple to the hospital.
"Well that was fun," said the wife as she disembarked from the vehicle at the end of the journey. "These ambulances really are spacious inside." And with that, the couple entered the hospital, not even bothering to thank the crew for the free lift.
This "emergency call," believe it not, was fairly typical. In the Tokyo metropolitan region, more than 90 percent of calls for ambulance assistance are for nonemergencies, according to statistics from the city's fire department. Ambulance crews find themselves spending the bulk of their shifts with such unnecessary tasks as escorting home salarymen too drunk to walk or kids with sprained wrists, rather than dealing with life-threatening injuries.
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Shukan Post figures the same trend exists throughout the country -- in 2003, ambulances were dispatched 4.8 million times.
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Maintaining a squadron of ambulances is an expensive business. The price of each fully equipped vehicle runs to around 200 million yen. The costs of employing a three-member crew for each one are even more astronomical.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government puts the cost of each ambulance dispatch in the city at around 45,000 yen.
So does the math: With 660,000 dispatches a year, more than 90 percent of which are unnecessary, taxpayers' money is being squandered annually to the tune of 25 billion yen a year -- and that's just in Tokyo. Yet unless the national habit of dialing for ambulances for less than serious situations can broken, the waste will continue.
Make the count. If 90% of the 4,8 million nationwide dispatches were for nonemergencies, like in Tokyo, the cost of unnecessary dispatches would amount to 200 billion yen per year in wasted tax-payers money. The problem is that ambulances are free and people tend to abuse as they have little idea that each dispatch cost the nation 45,000yen.
Considering that the average salary (based on the GDP per capita) in Japan is about 3 million yen a year, and that the equivalent tax rate is 10%, each citizen pays in average 300,000yen in taxes on salary each year. 200 billion yen of wasted tax equals to about 666,000 people whose total taxes are wasted in chauffeuring drunk salarymen home or other nonemergencies.
I think there should be penalties for calling an ambulance for a non emergency. Or there should be a pick-up service for elderly people who can't walk for their weekly or monthly visit to the hospital and can't afford a taxi. That pick-up service would be a minibus taking all the nonemergency patients to the hospital, without all the equipment and crew of a regular ambulance, so as to reduce costs. This service could even be charged at a reasonable rate (like public transportation), and heavier penalties (eg. 10,000yen) should then be imposed on those who try to abuse the free emergency ambulance service.
Each person has a different term for "emergency".
Heck, if a school kid didn't managed to finished his or her homework (or worse, the bully's homework that if isn't finished he or she will kill you or fatally injured you), that's an emergency to him or her no matter what other people said.
As for the couple with baby, drunk people, sprained wrist, and so on.
Well... Like I said, some people have their own definition. Maybe the problem isn't because of these people 'misused' the service, but the fact this kind of service existed in the first place.
As for wasted money.
Well... Money is cheap anyway. Besides if some people think the money is wasted, why bother to provide such service in the first place anyway?
But here's a way to reduce the number of 'unnecessary' calls, make them pay for every call their make, even for the life threatning ones. I'm sure that the number of ''unnecessary' calls will be reduced.
What about the cost? Heck, if there're life threatning emergencies, cost doesn't matter. Besides, even the mob (that includes the whole healthcare system, especially private ones) knows that you couldn't milk money out of a broke person. Not to mentioned that things will always have a way of sorting things out.
As for "Everything comes from taxes."
Everything comes from taxes, that were collected from the people and then owned by the government. The money is owned by the government, that's the truth, no matter how much some people said that it's 'the people's money'.
Heck, when most people paid their taxes, they don't expect it to come back from the government (either in financial form, goods, services, and so on). That's what it's always been for the last few thousands of years, and that's what it will be now. Of course, there will always provocation toward people by some people to demand more and more from their government.
For that, the answer is "Give Caesar what is Caesar's!"
Of course, there's always the Pharisees (separatists) around to provocate the people to goes against the government.
Anyway. If you think that tax is not mandatory, just try not paying tax for a few months. I'm sure that the police car, the fire engine and the ambulance will arrive at your place faster than if you were to call them by yourself.
As for "what "stupid civil laws" are you referring to ?"
I think he mean by laws that somehow were authorized eventhough everyone (including the people in the government) do want the laws to be authorized. The question is, if everyone don't the laws to be authorized, then who want the laws to be authorized in the first place?
Heck, all people just want to do what their want (which varies from person to person), disregard what some people said about caring for the community, in the end, what people care is what they want, sure some people want the happiness of others, but it's still what their want ("'I' want the happiness of others" for example). For a good lesson of selfishness in a good way (Yes, being selfish can be a good thing), it should be noted Mary got a very selfish trouble maker kid who is a Messiah, he could teach you a thing or two about being selfish in a good way, he's currently absent for the moment though.
All people need are just guidelines to organize themself so that things will worked nicely, where everyone gets what they want. Unfortunately, these days everytime there's a guideline that worked with everyone, it's thrown out.
Why? Because it will cause harmony among the people, and 'they' don't like that ('they' owned every government). Much like that 'they' don't like on how the people don't care about the taxes the people give to the government.
As for "Sometimes I wonder what this Japanese National Health Insurance covers"
Doh! The money is used for the free ambulance calls of course! That's right, somewhere out there, there are people using the money that were taken from you.
Maybe the problem isn't that the ambulance couldn't provide for the actual life threatning cases.
Maybe the real problem is that people were upset that somethere out there, there are people spending their money for stuff they deemed unnecessary.
