re: #8 Hecuba’s daughter

When Oliver reported that 19% of the ambulances in Chicago took over 7 minutes to reach their destination, my sole thought was — not exactly a surprise. My guess is that almost all such delays are due to traffic. Depending on the time of the day and weather, it can be a nightmare navigating Chicago streets.

NYC has similar issues with traffic during rush hour slowing response times. A few minute delay is difference between life and death for a heart attack or stroke victim for instance.

But for the Chicago authorities to indicate wait time is higher because they’re all out of ambulances, that is highly suggestive of something else at work and very wrong.

We make sure to donate to our volunteer ambulance service, because the life that they may save may be our own. It’s nuts that they have essentially had to do gofundmes for ambulance services because no one seems willing to pay for proper funding via govt services.

The biggest problem is that ambulances don’t get reimbursed for calls that don’t transport someone to a hospital. Those other calls are still costly, so they hike the recoup on everything else.

And air transport of sick patients is even more costly.