A total of 20 pre-hospital and ambulance care services (PRPA) hotspot operation centres have been placed nationwide so far, operated by St John Ambulance of Malaysia (SJAM).
Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said that the service was introduced to help reduce the response time of ambulance services during emergencies.
“To ensure the quality of service and response time is achieved, SJAM is working to acquire new ambulance units, devices and medical equipment.
“The average response time with the implementation of the PRPA hotspot is 15 minutes around a radius of 10 to 15km. Therefore, we hope that this effort will continue in stages in other locations as well,” she said.
She said this to reporters after visiting Kota Bharu’s PRPA hotspot operation centre, in conjunction with the open day and community programme at Al-Fattah Mosque, near Kampung Nilam, today, which was also attended by state health director, Datuk Dr Zaini Hussin.
Dr Zaliha added that SJAM also aims to place 111 automatic external defibrillator (AED) devices nationwide.
She added that thus far a total of 70 AEDs have been placed in locations such as shopping malls, public transport stations, schools, places of worship, government offices and so on in the Klang Valley.
“Today, for the first time, we provided three AED units to be placed outside the Klang Valley area, which is in Kelantan, namely Al-Fattah Mosque, Siti Khadijah Market and Panji Youth and Sports Complex,” she said. — Bernama