Emergency services in the Netherlands — that’s ambulances, police and fire brigades — have recorded their slowest response times in the past decade.
No, it’s not because the police missed the call while munching on some doughnuts. 🍩
Let’s break it down (no, not your car)
Dutch municipalities share the goal of arriving within 15 minutes for 90% of emergencies.
Last year, only 35 municipalities achieved this. That means over 300 municipalities missed the target response time.
READ MORE | Dutch emergency numbers you should know in the Netherlands
This affects any sickness, crimes, or fires requiring urgent attention:
- Ambulances, more often than not, arrive late in over 60 villages. 🚑
- Police in 307 municipalities failed to meet response targets, with some areas like Terschelling, Vlieland and Tholen in Zeeland recording the slowest times in the last decade. 🚓
- While the fire department managed to stay within the statutory maximum of 18 minutes on average, there are, once again, big regional differences. 🚒
Do they have an excuse?
Longer response times in rural areas are due to classic Dutch obstacles like rivers, bridges and railways, RTL Nieuws reports.
But they’ve always been around — why so slow now?
Well, there are more cars on the road for one. The Dutch Fire Service adds that heavy traffic, stricter measures and road closures contribute to delays.
Chief of Police Janny Knol explains, “We could choose to deploy a lot of extra capacity for emergency aid, purely to achieve our objectives, but that will always be at the expense of something else.”
See what the Dutch (and pretty much all of Europe) are saying on the matter. 👇
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