Ambulances are a means of saving people, they cannot become a means of profiting from the pain and despair of patients. However, information about the "chaos" of ambulances, patients at risk of being ripped off is showing a worrying reality: While human lives are calculated in minutes, some people see an opportunity there to charge money. This is no longer simply the story of how much a trip costs. It is a story of conscience, responsibility and management capacity for a special service.
A family with a loved one in critical condition almost has no time to survey prices, bargain or learn about each cost item. In that situation, the information asymmetry between service providers and service users is very large. If the price is not disclosed, patients almost have to accept the price offered.
The ambulance caller is not a normal customer. They may be someone who just had an accident, a critically ill patient, or a family in a state of panic because a loved one needs to be transferred to another hospital. In that situation, they do not have time to compare prices online, are not calm enough to bargain, and sometimes have no other choice.
If the price is not disclosed, the costs are not clearly announced, and patients only know to "grit their teeth" and pay a higher amount than reality, can it be called a transparent transaction?
It is impossible to use the two words "service" to legitimize all price levels, and even more impossible to use the reason "bought and sold" to ignore the special weakness of patients. In emergency care, patients are not customers who have the right to bargain. They are subjects who need to be protected.
An ambulance is a service with a special nature. Because of that special nature, management requirements must be higher, more transparent and responsibilities must also be clearer.
It is necessary to publicize the list of units that are eligible to operate so that people can recognize them. It is necessary to publicize or standardize the cost calculation method to limit the situation of each place having a different price, each trip having a different calculation method. It is necessary to have a mechanism to receive and process feedback quickly, because patients cannot wait weeks or months to be resolved an amount of money that has been paid in an emergency situation.
More importantly, it is necessary to strictly handle acts of deliberately taking advantage of the urgency of patients for profit. It is impossible to let the hospital gate area become a place where illegal service providers freely solicit, lead, and compete for patients.
Hospitals also cannot consider it as "outside the gate" and stand aside. When patients just step out of the hospital and are surrounded by invitations for ambulances, it is not just a matter of order. It is also a matter of protecting patients.
