Lack of phones cripples ambulance service
While the family of Daniel Castillo may speculate on whether a functioning phone system would have prevented their tragic loss, there is no doubt that one of the most troubling consequences of the union’s action is the crippling of emergency medical services. Yvette Burks, National Coordinator of BERT, the Belize Emergency Response Team, says that while the system remains internally connected, the people who need the service most continue to be cut off.
Yvette Burks, National Coordinator, BERT
?For us it?s extremely difficulty. In fact more so than like the police because we don?t have the manpower or resource to have people circling looking for emergencies. We usually receive the emergency calls through the telephones or through, occasionally through radio which is still effective. We still like get the calls to fire scenes and calls to the hospital once they hear about something or if they need to do a transfer they will call us by radio, but the average Belizeans was very limited over the weekend. Of course we have people coming all the way to the office, including for a couple of significant accidents, which of course kills a whole lot of time. Now we have the land lines, but that means that if somebody out there sees something on a regular cell phone they cannot call it in. So hopefully somebody has a radio in the vehicle and is able to convey that message. But it?s been very difficult all the way around.?
?We had several flights that were a problem because as you know we don?t only serve the land, we also serve by air. And so obviously if the districts had patients that they needed to move quickly, especially the islands or Punta Gorda, Placencia, and so on, they were unable to reach us. So we had critically ill patients coming in by regular flights, which was certainly not a good situation. And then we had a couple of patients who needed to travel internationally for more tertiary level care who were unable to do so because of the lack of the communication. So it?s been difficult times for all concerned.?
Patrick Jones
?Has this highlighted then the need for a backup system? Or can a backup system work in this situation??
Yvette Burks
?Absolutely. What happens right now is that we have radio service as the fire service has radio service and certainly the police. But what it shows us is how important it is to get a national grid going because not only in a circumstance like this, but for example a national disaster in terms of a natural thing like a hurricane could cause the same kind of fiasco. I had attended a couple of meetings some time back where NEMO was looking at getting a national grid going where everybody would be able to patch in, and unfortunately that hasn?t yet come to fruition.?
BERT currently operates a fleet of five ambulances: three stationed in Belize City and two in Spanish Lookout.
