By Ng Wan Ching

THE breathless woman with chest pains waited for an hour to go to hospital while her daughter and a Singapore Civil Defence Force ambulance crew argued over which one she should be taken to.

Madam Deep Kaur (above, right), whose case was later confirmed to have been a medical emergency, and her daughter, Madam Sheela Dhillon Kaur (above), wanted the ambulance crew to take them to Singapore General Hospital (SGH).

The crew and police officers at the scene tried to convince the family that Madam Deep, 68, should be taken to Alexandra Hospital (AH), which is the closest to her Mei Ling Street home.

That would have been in accordance with SCDF guidelines.

Going to the nearest hospital with the appropriate facilities can make all the difference between life and death in an emergency.

But Madam Sheela, 49, went on arguing and allegedly started shouting and turned abusive.

An SCDF spokesman said: 'She threatened to restrain our officers from leaving the flat.'

Madam Sheela, who is unemployed, denied this.

The SCDF officers had, by then, given her mother oxygen and improved her condition.

Madam Deep had woken up on Wednesday morning feeling unwell.

Said Madam Deep: 'At 7am, my chest felt heavy and I had difficulty breathing, but I took my medicine and I tried to control it.'

A little later, she needed to go to the toilet. She tried to get off her bed, but slipped and fell at the side.

'By then my urine came out. I was so scared. My daughter was not home as she had gone to buy something from the market,' said Madam Deep, who lives in the flat with her son, who was away at that time.

She said she then called a number, which she thought was the ambulance number, and asked for an ambulance to take her to SGH.

But she had actually reached the police, who re-routed the call to SCDF.

She did not call 1777, the number for private ambulances, because she did not know about it.

Upon arrival at her flat, the crew noted that Madam Deep was alert and coherent.

'However, she required oxygen to be provided to aid her breathing. Within 15minutes, her condition improved,' he said.

Madam Sheela said that ever since her second husband died at AH 10years ago, Madam Deep has had a phobia of the place.

Said Madam Sheela: 'My step-father stayed in that hospital for five months and 17 days before he died. Now my mother cannot stand going there.'

That was not the only reason for them choosing to go to SGH.

Madam Deep has several medical conditions including a weak heart, liver problems and diabetes, for which she is being looked after at SGH.

'All my mother's medical reports are in SGH. Why send her to AH, where they have to start from scratch? At SGH they will know straightaway what is wrong with her and treat her accordingly,' said Madam Sheela.

HOSPITALS LINKED

But the SCDF spokesman said: 'The medical records of all government restructured hospitals are electronically linked.

'And should the patients so desire, it would be possible for them to request a transfer to other hospitals after the patients' condition has been diagnosed, treated, stabilised and rendered safe for transfer.'

SCDF said the crew had tried to make all this clear to the women.

Madam Sheela said her mother had a heart angiogram a month ago.

'My mother's heart function is at 15per cent. A normal person's is about 60 per cent. So hers is a case of any time anything can happen,' she said.

If so, why did she insist on arguing herself? She had no answer to that.

She said that when she saw the ambulance waiting at her mother's flat, she 'immediately knew it was for (her) mother'.

'I was so scared for her. I was screaming and crying and pleading with them to just help us.

'Why argue with me when they could have taken my mother to SGH and we would all have been happy?'

When The New Paper arrived, the ambulance and crew had already left.

Said Madam Sheela: 'They took the oxygen off my mother, took her out of the wheelchair and put her on the couch and told me to take her to SGH by taxi.'

She seemed too distraught to do that. So we called a taxi to take her and her mother to SGH.

In the afternoon, when we called her, Madam Sheela said her mother had been admitted to SGH.

'She was admitted immediately from the A&E. The doctors said she has a lot of water in her lungs, which they are pumping out now,' she said.

An SCDF spokesman said they had received a call from the police at 9.16am on Wednesday and confirmed the ambulance crew spent an hour at the address.

'We wish to stress that by sending patients to the nearest designated government restructured hospitals, SCDF would be able to redeploy its ambulances faster to attend to subsequent calls, which is critical and helps save more lives,' he said.

Ultimately, it is all done in the best interests of the patients.

'We hope to have the public's understanding and cooperation on the matter,' he said.

The SCDF receives a high volume of ambulance calls daily.

'Last year, we responded to more than 109,000 ambulance calls,' said the spokesman.

This story was first published in The New Paper on Aug 1, 2008.