The *9999 Emergency Ambulance Service, located in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam, has a unique background as the first and only private and internationally accredited emergency dispatch service in the country.
Serving a population of over 9.5 million people in 809 square miles, the center was developed as an extension of Family Medical Practice Healthcare Group by Dr. Rafi Kot with a mission to provide lifesaving emergency services to the public.
Situated on the western bank of the Saigon River, HCMC is the main gateway to Vietnam, attracting over 8.6 million visitors in 2019. The city has a rich history of French and Chinese architectural influences and serves as an international transport hub for trade and commerce.
Tourists are drawn to sites such as the Independence Palace (Dinh Thống Nhất in Vietnamese), City Hall, the Municipal Theatre (also known as Saigon Opera House), the Saigon Central Post Office, and the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon, among many other historical and religious sites.
The Bến Thành Market (Chợ Bến Thành), one of the oldest surviving structures, celebrates a vibrant marketplace culture and offers a glimpse into the vast array of roadside restaurants and food stalls that feed hungry passersby. Bui Vien walking street is known as the heartbeat of Ho Chi Minh's nightlife, where the streets are full of zipping motorbikes—the main form of travel for the most populated city in the country.
Despite the city's hustle and bustle, the Emergency *9999 line remains surprisingly underutilized, handling around 50 calls monthly. This underlines the need for greater public awareness and education regarding emergency services in Vietnam.
*9999 Emergency Center origin
In 1988, Dr. Rafi first came to Vietnam from Israel to manage health care projects for minority tribespeople in the nation’s remote northern areas. After years of personal dedication, professional growth, and community outreach, he developed a private premier healthcare system, Family Medical Practice Healthcare Group, with six medical centers across the country providing 50,000 patients annually with diagnosis and treatment in the fields of emergency and evacuation medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and many other specialties.1
Inspired by the United States’ 911 emergency services, Dr. Rafi saw the need to launch an ambulance response system as an extension of Family Medical Practice Healthcare Group.
Curious about how American dispatchers knew the right questions to ask, he learned they were guided by screens. This insight led him to collaborate with the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch® (IAED™) to translate the Medical Priority Dispatch System™ (MPDS®) into Vietnamese, successfully launching ProQA® software in 2016.
Selecting an easily recognized phone number for the new Vietnamese emergency line, Dr. Rafi turned to his child’s third grade class to try out various options. Ultimately, the children remembered the 9-9-9-9 sequence best, so he purchased the four-digit phone number.
The next challenge was to hire “the people sitting behind the screens,” as Dr. Rafi described it. While appreciating the culture and peaceful nature of the Vietnamese people, he realized the challenge of finding candidates who would be able to handle frantic callers and distressing emergency situations.
Thinking outside the box, Dr. Rafi’s solution was to recruit airline stewardesses, figuring their experience with demanding and multicultural customers would prepare them for the role.
Unfortunately, when the new hires encountered emergency simulations, the airport-to-dispatch staff froze at the console, overwhelmed by the “drama.” In a creative twist, Dr. Rafi made an unusual decision to send the dispatchers to a local theater group at the British Council for three months to truly learn drama. Amazingly, the theatrical experience gave the team the needed confidence to approach a new venture as the first-ever emergency dispatchers in Vietnam.
Dr. Rafi’s innovative approach, while unexpected, has been all about applying new philosophies, including how the ambulance service should be used:
“Here (in Vietnam), the ambulance is perceived as a transport vehicle to move people from here to there,” he explained. “I’m trying to help people understand that the hospital is in the car.” Additionally, the instructions emergency dispatchers provide are instant and, at times, lifesaving.
However, that concept is still emerging. At first, prank calls were the primary use of the *9999 line, but the team handled each case professionally in order to build the public’s trust that every call for help would be answered.
Creating rapid response times was also no small hurdle. Dr. Rafi had to instill a sense of urgency in the newly titled Vietnamese “paramedics” (a position and term Dr. Rafi only recently helped legislate with the Minister of Health in Vietnam).
In Dr. Rafi’s words, “We move. We move NOW! You don’t just come to work. You come with FIRE.”
This is a radically different approach from the local emergency medical services in Vietnam where patients may sometimes wait up to three hours for an ambulance. The *9999 Ambulance Service is also supremely unique in its lifesaving equipment such as trauma kits, fast-vacuum splints, automatic CPR machines (DR. LUCAS), etc.
Today, even the Chief of Police is grateful for the efficiency of the Emergency *9999 dispatch and paramedic team. Their response statistics are impressive with an average of only four minutes from call to dispatch and 12 minutes (day)/9 minutes (night) for arrival in the bustling HCMC, comparative to London Ambulance Service, which serves a similarly sized population and physical area.
Trailblazing dispatchers
The *9999 Emergency Center employs six dispatchers working 12-hour shifts from 7 to 7 (day/night), typically with only one or two dispatchers on duty at a time. The flexible schedule and serene setting allow dispatchers to study or read, though many choose to invest their time in learning more about ProQA beyond their required training. Despite their preparedness, the service remains underutilized and more public engagement is needed.
Ms. Noy Guas, Head of *9999, recognizes the importance of public outreach and education for their agency to gain traction with the immense population in HCMC.
“We’re hoping to increase our call volume,” Noy said. “We aim to raise awareness so that the public can recognize a real emergency and trust our services.”
To increase visibility, Family Medical Practice has created membership programs for large local companies (e.g., Adidas, Puma, Olay) to increase corporate interactions. They also use several avenues to interact with the community: conducting first aid and CPR training sessions, collaborating with schools, providing security services on sports days, hosting visitors from around the world, and supporting large corporate social events like a BritCham (British Chamber of Commerce) Fun Run, HCM City Japan Vietnam Festival, and International Travel Exhibition.
“The citizens here want to know how to help other people, but they don’t always have the tools,” Noy said. “When I began with first aid, I saw passion in their eyes.”
The most intrigued learners are children, who are fascinated by the ambulances, the equipment, and how they help save lives. The younger population passes on their knowledge to older generations, furthering the advancement of Vietnam’s emergency services.
Working with child callers has been a highlight for Ms. Ngoc Vu, one of the most experienced employees at *9999. “I just had a case with a 10-year-old girl where the father was in a motorbike accident,” Ngoc said. “She was a little nervous—crying—but she really knew what to tell us about the situation. She was a better caller than an adult.”
Most calls received on the *9999 line involve medical assistance for tourists, primarily elderly patients with complex medical histories. In recent years, Dr. Rafi has organized a stroke response team providing instant medical assessment and improving the time frame for treatment.
Ultimately, the *9999 Emergency Center lives up to their motto “Your health, our care” while continuing to expand its emergency services to their huge population. As the city grows, so does the potential for this lifesaving service to become an integral part of HCMC’s emergency response landscape.
Source
- “History.” Family Medical Practice Vietnam. 2021. www.vietnammedicalpractice.com/hcmc/en/about-us/history (accessed Aug 15, 2024).
