Since Monday, July 3, calling 999 connects us to Legnica. It is the dispatcher there who decides whether to send an ambulance. Calling 112, in turn, connects us to an even more distant dispatcher, as far away as Wrocław.
Changes of this kind are being introduced throughout the country. Generally, the aim is to speed up ambulances’ arrival at sick or injured people. At the headquarters in Legnica or Wrocław, dispatchers can see on their screens the location of the caller and the ambulances in the caller’s region. They send the one that is closest.
The system continuously monitors the location of emergency vehicles. Therefore, there will be no situation in which one of the ambulances is being used for ordinary transport (as sometimes happened) and is unavailable when help needs to be sent.
“Any movement of an ambulance is monitored in Legnica. Emergency teams have GSM phones and tablets. This is how they receive calls. Throughout July, we are checking whether GSM coverage is good across the entire county. If there are any gaps, a radio communication module will have to be purchased so that Legnica can also contact the paramedics by radio. So far, during three days of testing, there have been no problems,” says Adam Zdaniuk, head of the Bolesławiec hospital.