Private medics miss 4 in 10 cases of cardiac arrest

ALL content used in this not-for-profit blog remain the property of their respective owners.
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/private-medics-miss-4-10-cases-cardiac-arrest-20131020

Four in 10 cardiac arrest incidents went unnoticed by private ambulance crewmen when they responded to non-emergency calls, a new study has found.

Efforts to resuscitate these patients were also delayed in some instances despite the crew having identified the symptoms.

Figures show that 86 patients, with an average age of 63, were found to be in cardiac arrest by the time they pulled into the emergency department of a public hospital.

As for emergency calls, three out of four that emergency ambulances responded to in the first half of the year were for medical cases such as cardiac arrest and acute stroke.

The number of such calls also went up by about 10 per cent to 54,447 cases from the same period last year.

Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) spokesman K. Thanalachumi attributed the increase to the growing demand of the ageing population.

To deal with the caseload, the SCDF this month increased its fleet of private emergency ambulances to 20, up from 10 previously.

And to improve response times, SCDF fire bikers are now equipped with portable defibrillators.