Legislation may help speed ambulance journeys

Beijing legislature is working on the fifth draft of the legislation on first aid, the Beijing News reported on Thursday.

In an attempt to help guarantee ambulances right of way, the legislature is considering exempting first aid workers from legal responsibility if an ambulance carrying a patient in a critical condition scrapes a car on its way to hospital.

The government is also planning to train healthcare workers at a grassroots level so they can provide first aid to patients in the neighborhood when heavy traffic delays ambulances. 

On Dec 7, a first aid medical worker called Wang Yuzhu of Beijing Emergency Medical Center posted on her micro blog, that an ambulance she was in was stuck in traffic and the patient, who was in a critical condition, passed away before they reached the hospital.

Wang later said that vehicles parked illegally in the bicycle lane blocked the ambulance's only way to escape the traffic jam. 

The message stirred heated discussion over ambulance priority on the road, which is already stipulated by law but failed to be effective partly due to serious traffic congestion in the city.

According to the center, the speed of its ambulances in urban areas in daytime is less than 40 kilometers per hour.