Pandemic drives ambulance services work up in 2022

Except for fires that decreased slightly (-4.15%), the work of the Fire Services Bureau (CB) has increased significantly during the first nine months of this year, a statistics release shows.

In general, the CB was called to intervene in an additional 6,697 cases compared to the same period last year, which is an increase of 19.8%.

In the first three quarters of this year (January to September), alarms sounded at fire stations over 40,000 times, with most cases related to pandemic prevention and control work.

According to the CB, the number of ambulances leaving the fire stations was 33,760, an increase of 4,810 cases (16.6%) compared to the same period last year. 

“After analysis, the causes of the increase [in ambulance requests] were mainly due to the need to transport a large number of suspected and confirmed cases [of Covid-19], due to the epidemic outbreak that took place in June this year,” the CB said, adding that during that period they transported 6,368 suspected and confirmed cases, which involved 11,540 people.

If we exclude the pandemic work, the need for ambulances has decreased.

The CB also noted that, in total, during the first nine months of this year, they transported 22,761 people with suspected or confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection in around 14,000 trips.

Rescue operations increase 22%

In the same period, CB staff attended 1,472 rescue operations, 269 more (22.36%) than in the same period last year.

These operations included helping injured and sick people, helping to open doors, and rescuing animals, among other tasks.

Special operations which included the deployment of staff and vehicles increased significantly (57.1%) when compared to last year. Most of the work included in this category related to inspections that required the deployment of personnel and vehicles.