Here at the Nee Naw Service we have a wonderful invention called TAS, the Telephone Advice Service. Before TAS was invented, we had to send an ambulance to every call, no matter how trivial. Now, when someone rings up with a stomach ache or cut finger, instead of getting an ambulance straight away, they get a call back from a friendly ambulance technician or paramedic (otherwise known as “getting tazzed”). EMTs and paramedics come to work on TAS either as a secondment on a temporary basis or because they have some kind of injury that is keeping them off the road. The TAS person rings back the caller with the rubbish-sounding ailment and asks them a whole lot of more details questions (I don’t envy them this — you know how much callers love being asked questions, and you can probably guess that those making most pointless calls are those who demand an ambulance within five seconds). After assessing the patient, the TAS person can do any of the following:
1) Advise that the call is more serious than it appears and that an ambulance is sent on blue lights in a normal way.
2) Advise that the patient needs an ambulance to get them to hospital but not as an emergency case - the patient will have a long wait and may be dealt with by a non-emergency Patient Transport ambulance.
3) Tell the patient that they don’t need an ambulance and to make their own way to the hospital.
4) Tell the patient that they don’t need to go to hospital at all and give them advice about how to treat the illness/injury at home, including medications and calling out a GP.

If the patient insists they need an ambulance, TAS have the option of invoking the No Send policy, which means refusing the patient an ambulance. Apparently this only happens in something like 0.9% of calls, and only happens when the caller is being totally unreasonable, eg., demanding an ambulance for a spot on their nose. Most of the people called back by TAS are happy to do as they are told, and an ambulance is saved that way.

Unfortunately, for the last week or so, TAS have been AWOL. I don’t know where they have gone; perhaps they have gone to work in Santa’s Grotto as elves. No-one has bothered telling us. This means that all the rubbish calls have to receive ambulances, and us call takers are getting very frustrated because when we take a call about something stupid, we know someone somewhere with a genuine ailment is going to suffer because of it. Call takers aren’t allowed to tell people that they shouldn’t be calling or refuse an ambulance and if someone hears us doing so we get into trouble. Apparently, we have enough medical expertise to deliver babies and give CPR, but not to tell someone that they are a timewaster. This is the kind of frustration that has us chewing the back of our hands to prevent an explosion of increduality; once we hang up after the call we exclaim to the person sitting next to us “He wanted an ambulance for THAT?! Can you believe it!” and have to take a few deep breaths before launching into the next call.

It’s actually very difficult to take these calls without appearing rude, even if you follow the script word for word, like so:

Mark: Nee Naw Service, what’s the problem?
Girl: My baby won’t stop crying! She is teething!
Mark: Er, is there anything *wrong* with your baby? Do you think she might be ill?
Girl: No, she ain’t ill! She’s teething!
Mark: So, let me get straight - you want a ambulance because your baby is teething, and you’re sure there’s nothing else wrong?
Girl: I need some ‘ELP ‘ere! She won’t stop crying!
Mark: Okay then. (And I launch into our “catch all” sick person protocol, which attempts to identify if the patient has any of the “priority symptoms” we look for, and can sound quite oblique and nonsensical if they don’t). Is she conscious? Is she breathing? Is she breathing normally?…”
Girl: Well of course she is! There ain’t no need to ask sarky questions!

Mark: Nee Naw Service, what’s the problem?
Man: I’m at my friend’s house… his son has a rash. He’s had it four months and keeps going to the doctor but they aren’t doing anything about it!
Mark: Oh dear. So what’s the emergency now - what prompted you to call for an ambulance?
Man: I told you, they’re not doing anything about the rash!
Mark: Yes… but I mean, you’re calling for an ambulance now — did something happen to make you think this is becoming an emergency or are you asking for an ambulance for a rash that’s been there for four months? (A reasonable question, I think — what if the boy had suddenly developed a stiff neck and light sensitivity to go with the rash?)
Man: Right! Fine! Don’t send an ambulance then! You are just as bad as the GP! No-one will listen! What is your name? I am going to complain about you!
Mark: I never said I wasn’t going to send you an ambulance. I just wanted to be clear as to the reason you wanted one. And I’m afraid we don’t give out names - Nee Naw Service policy.
Man: Right! Then I shall report you for not giving your name too!

Other calls that have cropped up in the last week include a woman with “strange sensations in her knees” who decided to cancel the ambulance only when it turned up and was knocking on her door, a woman who had been out in high heeled shoes and given herself a painful blister and five billion cases of festive diarrhoea and vomiting.

Please come back TAS, all is forgiven.

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