Epress.am News from Armenia
This New Year’s and Christmas holiday was a particularly busy time for Yerevan’s emergency services. Compared to last year, the number of emergency calls received between Jan. 1–8, 2012, increased by 1,103, Director of the Yerevan Ambulance Service Taguhi Stepanyan told journalists in the Armenian capital today.
“The 616 calls received daily in the first 8 days of 2011 was considered quite a high figure, but the number of calls this year rose to 750 [per day]. We received a total of 5,708 calls from Jan. 1–8 this year, [as a result of which] 895 people were hospitalized. During the same period, the number of calls related to children was 513, and 118 children were hospitalized,” she said.
Stepanyan mentioned that calls related to cardiovascular diseases were many — 1,462 cases of which 269 were hospitalized.
“As for cases of inebriation, there were 25. Also, 3 cases of food poisoning were recorded. There were also 53 cases related to flare-ups of chronic gastrointestinal tract diseases,” she added, noting that a significant portion of the calls were resolved at home.
“More difficult is the issue of repeated calls, when certain illnesses are diagnosed on site and the doctor insists that the patient must be taken to hospital, but the patient refuses and some time later, calls again — only after the second or third call does he go to hospital,” she explained.
As for quick response time, Stepanyan said: “It’s very important for residents to realize that when we’re getting 750 calls a day it’s simply impossible for paramedics to arrive on site within 7–12 minutes. They call us and demand we arrive on the scene within this time frame, but I have to inform them that this is only possible when we have no more than 455 calls a day.”