Tiered fees for ambulances should be introduced to prevent their misuse, the Legislative Research Bureau said in a recent report.
Ambulances operated by fire departments across Taiwan were requested by members of the public 206 times over the past 10 months, and in many of those cases they were unnecessary, the report said.
That is an ambulance called once every 1.5 days, which raises concerns about the misuse of medical resources, it said.
Photo: Tang Shih-ming
The report called for amendments to the Charge and Fees Act (規費法), as well as Article 20 of the Emergency Medical Services Act (緊急醫療救護法), to “create standards for all local governments to follow,” and to implement reminders, late-payment penalties and other stipulations related to ambulance fees.
Currently, only some cities and counties collect fees for public ambulance use.
Misuse of fire department ambulances would be an issue because the departments need ambulances available to deploy when responding to emergencies, the report said, citing a 15.8 percent increase in such deployments over the past five years.
Nationwide, fire departments sent out ambulances about 1.3 million times in 2022, accounting for an average of 3,582 dispatches per day.
As those dispatches relied on the use of a total of 1,281 ambulances at fire departments nationwide, the ambulances were already being put to heavy use serving the departments’ needs, the report said.
“People have the right to use public property for legitimate purposes, and there should be no doubt that fire department ambulances are public property,” it said.
“However, there are limited resources available, and it is therefore reasonable to collect fees from those misusing those resources,” it said.
Localities that charged for public ambulance use had a lower rate of repeated use by individuals, the report said.
However, current laws do not stipulate penalties or increased fees for those who misuse public resources, and do not outline measures for those who do not pay fees, it said.
“Amendments would empower local governments to tackle resource misuse and enforce collection of fees and implementation of penalties,” it said.
“A tiered fee system would also help deter repeated use of precious resources while not penalizing those with legitimate use cases.”
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