Kenya: Uber-style app-managed SSM/CAD speeds ambulance response to terrorist MCI

[Summit]

Kenya's ambulance 'Uber' at heart of siege rescue

Just minutes after militants attacked a luxury hotel complex in Nairobi last month, the first ambulances roared up to collect wounded survivors.

www.reuters.com

"Speedy medical help is taken for granted in the West, but many developing nations do not have centralized emergency command. Confusion during past attacks in Kenya cost lives. This time, the response was far better, partly thanks to Flare, a new ride-hailing app whose ambulances were first to the dusitD2 hotel and office complex hit by Somalia’s al Shabaab.
...
Peter Koome, a paramedic with charity St. John Ambulance, said the improved coordination, along with better training and access, certainly helped save lives.

Of 30 people badly wounded, all but two survived.

Americans Caitlin Dolkart and Maria Rabinovich founded Rescue.co in 2016. The Flare app works like ride-hailing and food-delivery services and now has tens of thousands of subscribers and 500 ambulances across Kenya.
..."

 

[DrParasite]

Flare (the ambulance uber) is a SUBSCRIPTION based service. so if you pay for the service, you can get it. if you don't, you can't call for the ambulance.

While this is an interesting concept, and did work in this case, where was the local ambulance service? Even the article says "Whereas Kenyans with an emergency are used to calling their closest hospital and ambulances often become ensnared in traffic" which makes me think the local infrastructure is not set up to handle the normal call volume, so the for-profit entity stepped in, providing service to those who can afford it.

Subscription services are nothing new, especially if the alternative is nothing or a failing service.

I am curious as to what the local EMS system thinks of the uber ambulance systems.

 

[vc85]

Isn't that the idea that one ambulance service who was advertising on this site had. The one that was supposedly paying basics 70k+ and allowing them to choose what calls to respond to?