Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    HIGH pressure and low pay are making it difficult for Shenzhen to find EMTs (emergency medical technicians).

    A recent citywide survey by the city’s health authority showed that 60 percent of Shenzhen medical workers are reluctant to work as EMTs, as they consider the job risky, stressful and poorly paid.

    There are cases of EMTs being attacked by the families of patients.

    Of the 82 hospitals in Shenzhen which can provide emergency medical care, only 38 have professional EMT departments, with the remaining using staff from the emergency department to respond to emergency calls.

    Shenzhen’s emergency responders have an average annual turnover of 25 percent, with the rate up to 50 percent at some private hospitals. As many as 74 percent of emergency responders are temporary employees, statistics from the Shenzhen Emergency Center show.

    Shenzhen’s demand for emergency responders has been rising rapidly, with the city’s medical emergency line, 120, receiving 935,000 calls last year, dispatching ambulances 166,000 times and attending to 137,000 patients, Zhang Fulin, director of the Shenzhen Emergency Center, told reporters yesterday.

    To meet the demand, Shenzhen needed at least 1,278 emergency responders last year, according to national requirements that at least one professional first-aid responder is on each ambulance, but the city only had 895 EMTs, Zhang said.

    Currently, Shenzhen has 129 medical emergency responder teams, an equivalent of 1.6 teams for every hospital, according to Zhang.

    “It’s far from enough as emergency response is a 24-hour responsibility,” said Zhang. “Ideally each hospital should have four teams. They can do nothing but work around the clock.”

    To protect the rights of EMTs, Shenzhen plans to pass a law exempting them from being prosecuted in some circumstances. The EMTs can seek help from police if they believe patients or their families may harm them.

    In addition, “the city government has decided to offer an annual subsidy of 45 million yuan (US$6.92 million) to first-aid care, which will be used to cover equipment and labor costs in the field,” Zhang said.