10% of Japan ambulances return without passengers

toKYo: Many of the cases in which ambulances returned without patients are believed to stem from non-urgent, non-essential calls, such as people requesting an ambulance instead of a taxi to go to the hospital.

Concerns have been raised that unnecessary mobilisation could hinder the transport of patients with serious illnesses or injuries.

The agency plans to evaluate the problem through such efforts as ensuring that the description of what constitutes a non-transport ambulance call-out is consistent. Currently, it differs in some municipalities.

According to the agency, which is an arm of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry, the number of such non-transports stood at 630,056 nationwide in 2015, up about 190,000 cases, or 40%, from 2006.

The overall number of cases in which ambulances were dispatched in 2015 increased by 20% from 2006.

The percentage of ambulance call-outs that were non-transports rose from 8.4% in 2006 to 10.4% in 2015.

The agency estimates that the 2016 figures will be about the same as those of 2015. The empty returns included cases in which people already died by the time of arrival, the misreporting of incidents and prank calls.

They also included times when people called an ambulance because they did not know which hospital to visit; elderly people who refused to be transported after a family member requested emergency assistance; and call-outs for people who became incapacitated after drinking an excessive amount of alcohol.

The Tokyo Fire Department, which has the highest number of ambulance dispatches in the nation, experienced about 90,000 non-transport cases in 2016, or 12% of the call-out total in their jurisdiction.

Among the non-transports cases, about 57,000 cases involved people declining or refusing to be transported.

Against the backdrop of an aging population, the number of ambulances mobilized is increasing year by year.

The average arrival time has also increased in 2015 it was 8.6 minutes, about 2 minutes longer than 10 years ago.