From an economic point of view, charging more or less ensures that resources are used for those who need them more. If ambulances were completely free, it would inevitably lead to people choosing to call an ambulance for both major and minor ailments --
"I had a heart attack today, ambulance!!!"
"Tomorrow I have a cold, ambulance!!!"
"It's free anyway, and I do have a medical condition, so why not take it?"
If ambulances were called for all major and minor illnesses, how many ambulances would it take to meet people's needs?
Thinking back to the days of the "big pot of rice", when everyone was desperate to utilize the resources, resulting in a lack of resources in the end, the ambulance was misused. Ambulances were misused, and the result was that seriously ill people were not treated in a timely manner. And how much can charging reduce this phenomenon, raising the threshold for ambulance use will leave it to the people who need it most.
Second, the cost of operating the ambulance itself
From the operation of the ambulance's call desk and the staff on duty, to the equipment on board the ambulance and the ambulance crews, none of them are free, and all of them also need to be paid to maintain and pay for their work.
The Guangzhou ambulance charges 148 yuan for a single trip. This includes transportation to the hospital within the jurisdiction of the appropriate hospital, the cost of one doctor and one nurse, the cost of two stretcher bearers, and the cost of pre-hospital resuscitation. (Additional charges apply for medication or transportation outside the jurisdiction.)
In the hospital's cost breakdown, the cost of the car is 58 yuan, a range of about 5 kilometers, considering the car's equipment, fuel consumption are not cab class, and considering the two trips back and forth to consume fuel, 58 yuan has not been more expensive than the cost of a cab to where it is, right?
Medical staff visit fee, doctors and nurses are each 15 yuan, which is a hospital emergency department temporarily missing two laborers as the price, and a trip out of the car is definitely longer than the time in the emergency water to see a patient, combined with the occupation of health care resources, this is the equivalent of the price of jumping out of the building.
Two stretcher-bearers for $20, a price far below the market rate for porters, not to mention the fact that it takes two to split.
Pre-hospital resuscitation fee is in accordance with the standard mandatory fee, 40 yuan, do not feel that there is no chest compression did not tie the infusion of fluids did not do anything else is the same as no pre-hospital resuscitation, the basic condition of the judgment, decision-making is also part of the resuscitation.
The consumption of medical resources (including manpower) caused by the patient not needing resuscitation and calling 120 should also be borne by the person calling 120. Compared to the price of an ambulance in the US (which averages about $1,200), China's ambulance rates are a bare-bones "jump in price".