The tragic death of a pedestrian in a road mishap at Guirim has once again exposed glaring gaps in our emergency medical response system.
According to reports, the victim lay injured on the road for nearly one and a half hours while waiting for an ambulance to arrive. The “golden hour,” which is a well-established concept in trauma care, refers to the first sixty minutes after an injury, during which prompt medical treatment significantly improves survival chances.
Incidentally ambulance services focus on how fast ambulances are driven with sirens blaring once a patient is inside. Besides speed, what truly matters is the response time, which is how quickly an ambulance reaches the victim after a distress call is made.
The fact that an injured person was left waiting on the road for 1.5 hours points to systemic failures. Was the ambulance unavailable? Was there a lack of adequate staff? These are questions that demand clear and honest answers.
The death of the pedestrian in Guirim should not fade into yet another statistic. It should compel urgent reforms in emergency response services.
