Chiayi Hospital Emergency! Patient's Life in Danger as Ambulance Takes 1 Hour to Arrive - Ministry of Health Launches Investigation

Dr. Chen Cheng-Zhe, the director of the general psychiatry department at Chiayi Hospital, revealed through his personal Facebook and the Ministry of Health's mailbox that in mid-June, an inpatient at the hospital suffered food obstruction during dinner, turning their lips blue and losing consciousness. Despite performing the Heimlich maneuver, the patient's vital signs remained unstable, with blood oxygen levels dropping to 44%. As a psychiatric specialty hospital, the facility lacks internal and external medicine doctors and equipment to handle patients with unstable vital signs, necessitating emergency transfer to a general hospital. However, after calling the outsourced ambulance, it took 1 hour and 5 minutes to arrive. During this time, the critically ill patient had to remain in an environment without follow-up emergency care, placing immense pressure and risk on frontline medical staff. Dr. Chen further pointed out that after the incident, the hospital held a meeting but did not discuss the reason for the ambulance's over 1-hour delay. In mid-July, a similar incident occurred again. The two incidents raised at least two issues: First, can psychiatric specialty hospitals directly call 119 for emergency transfers? If not, what is the legal basis? If they can, why do frontline staff have concerns about being reprimanded for calling 119? Dr. Chen noted that the hospital's outsourced ambulance contract stipulates a 25-minute response time, but the two incidents took 65 minutes and 27 minutes respectively, indicating the contract was not being fulfilled. More importantly, for emergency medical care where every second counts, even 25 minutes is too long. The reasonable approach should be to prioritize patients based on their condition, with those with unstable vital signs directly calling 119, and only using outsourced ambulances for stable patients. However, the hospital currently lacks such a system, and no actual improvements have been made in the past two months. In response, Deputy Minister Liu Yu-Chuan of the Ministry of Health stated that the Ministry will instruct the Medical Management Committee of the National Hospitals to handle the matter. After an initial understanding of the situation, the Ministry's attached medical and social welfare institutions management office will visit Chiayi Hospital next week to review and improve ambulance response times. They will also evaluate the hospital's contract with the outsourced ambulance service, requiring improved transportation times. Additionally, they will assess the possibility of setting up in-house ambulances operated by qualified drivers. Furthermore, they will discuss emergency medical transfer procedures and response measures for Chiayi Hospital.