Use GPS technology to reduce emergency services delay, says MP

 

Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin has urged the Malaysian Emergency Response System (MERS) 999 to utilise GPS technology to reduce delays in emergency services arriving where they are needed.

This comes after a man died due to cardiac arrest after crashing his car in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, yesterday.

The ambulance reportedly arrived one hour after an emergency call was made to MERS999.

“In the Klang Valley, users of RapidKL buses can track the arrival of their buses through a mobile app utilising GPS (Global Positioning System).

“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 makes use of such GPS technology to reduce delays in the existing MERS999 emergency services, failing which it may end up redundant and people end up being disillusioned with the government machinery, which can only then be described as a failed government,” Chan said in a statement last night.

Delay in emergency services arrival

This is not the first time someone had perished due to a delay in emergency services arriving at the scene of the emergency, he said.

Chan, who is a DAP member, said he had last year raised in Parliament this same issue after a family of four perished in a fire in Penampang due to the fire brigade’s late arrival.

Every second counts in an emergency, he said, as the longer the delay, the higher the likelihood that life will be lost.

“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,” he said.

As such, he urged MERS999 to provide a detailed explanation for the ambulance arriving one hour after the call was made in the incident yesterday.

“Is it due to the lack of exact location? Is it due to the lack of ambulances? Is it due to a lack of manpower? Or is it due to sheer nonchalance and lack of a sense of urgency by the call centre?” Chan questioned. - Mkini