Patients dying in traffic? Palace says look for roads sans traffic, use choppers

Emergency workers rushing patients to the hospitals should find roads with less traffic or fly them altogether in helicopters, presidential spokesman Secretary Salvador Panelo said on Tuesday.

News agency Agence France-Presse has reported that some ambulance drivers had had that patients had died on their way to hospitals because of the traffic congestion in Metro Maniula.

The report said emergency lanes were unavailable on roads plagued by gridlock. It added that motorists even refused to give way to emergency vehicles.

"They should look for roads which are not traffic-laden, or use choppers for an emergency flight," Panelo said in a news conference.

Panelo used the report to again call on lawmakers to give President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers to deal with the traffic mess.

“We have all the more reason that the senators should reconsider the grant of emergency powers to the President given the situation that patients are dying because the ambulance carrying them could not reach the hospital on time,” Panelo said.

Panelo said the Department of Health and the Department of National Defense (DND) should be able to come up with a protocol on helicopters air ambulances, he said.

“Kung ganoon kaselan ang problema, DOH should initiate it. The secretary of the Department of Health and the DND should agree on how to do it,” Panelo said.

“The DOH can have it proposed in their next budget hearing, or ask the help of other agencies in buying choppers to be used as an ambulance,” he added.

Before the press conference in Malacañang started Tuesday, Senator Grace Poe and Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade had a heated argument at the Senate regarding the President’s emergency powers to address the daily gridlock gripping Metro Manila.

Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Services noted that existing laws are already enough to speed up the procurement for infrastructure projects needed to decongest the metropolis. She was against emergency powers for the President.

If only the Duterte administration was able to secure emergency powers from the legislature many approaches to resolving the gridlock could have been done by the government, Tugade said in his opening speech during the committee hearing.

“Kung napagbigyan lang sana ng emergency power noon, dapat ngayon nirerepaso na natin ‘yung mga nagawa. Kami ay umaasa na ngayon ay mabigyang pansin ang emergency power na aming hinihingi,” he said.

While Malacañang is hoping for the best, the President does not intend to move heaven and earth just to secure emergency powers, Panelo noted.

“Some Senators issued statements against it, insinuating that it might be an abuse of power, so the President said, kayo na lang. Ever since, the President wanted it. Kung ayaw niyo, eh di huwag,” Panelo said.

“The President will not go down on his knees and plead. They should know what the President needs to solve the problem with respect to this matter,” he added. —VDS/NB, GMA News