A management regulation on pre-hospital emergency care went through a preliminary examination at the 18th session of the municipal People's Congress Standing Committee meeting in Changsha city, Hunan province on Jan 15, Changsha Evening News reported.

The draft regulation clearly stipulates that pre-hospital emergency care shouldn’t be declined, denied, or delayed for any reason. It specifically points out that for those sick or wounded who are not able to pay for the service charges, the 120 emergency aid centers and hospitals should not decline or delay emergency care.

Meanwhile, the allocation of emergency vehicles should be based on factors such as the population size, geographic scope, and economic conditions of the administrative divisions, and ensure that there's at least one such vehicle for every 50,000 people.

The Changsha 120 emergency aid center, currently equipped with 15 network hospitals, 75 doctors and 52 emergency vehicles, is responsible for pre-hospital emergency care in the urban area of the city.

Four county-level emergency aid centers are respectively distributed in Changsha county, Wangcheng district, Liuyang city, and Ningxiang county, altogether with 37 emergency network hospitals, 178 doctors, and 67 vehicles.

All the emergency care stations undertook 134,413 emergency aid services in 2013, including 9,415 joint actions with the 110 police emergency team, providing a basic guarantee to people's health and safety in the city.

With the constant development of the local economy and society, however, the current pre-hospital emergency care service system in Changsha is barely enough to meet the growing heath needs of its residents.

The number of emergency aid stations in Changsha's urban area is only half of that in Wuhan and one third of that in Zhengzhou, which are another two provincial capital cities in Central China. Meanwhile, of the total 115 towns in its rural area, only 22 of them have their hospitals joined in to the 120 emergency network, well below the national standard.

The charging standard of pre-hospital emergency care in Changsha, as prescribed by the Hunan Commodity Price Bureau, is currently 100 yuan for every service.

A pre-hospital emergency care service team in Changsha at work. [Photo by Wang Zhiwei/Changsha Evening News]