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A few days ago, an ambulance on the Shanghai Expressway was stopped by a toll station when he reached the exit, which caused heated discussion. In response, the Ministry of Transport recently responded that ambulances are not free vehicles, and it has asked local transportation departments to actively contact hospitals, emergency centers and other units to install ETC for ambulance vehicles for free.
ambulance is not among the free vehicles. This is clearly stipulated in the " Toll Road Management Regulations " published in 2004. According to the Regulations, six types of vehicles such as military vehicles and armed police forces are exempt from vehicle tolls, which do not include ambulances. However, due to the certain vague space in the above regulations, Guangdong, Heilongjiang and other places issued documents to clearly reduce tolls for 120 ambulances that are performing emergency tasks and are equipped with fixed devices.
Now the Ministry of Transport’s statement that “ambulances are not free vehicles” is just a reaffirmation of existing regulations. This response has attracted attention in the public opinion field. On the surface, is a question of whether ambulances should be charged, but the essence is: when there are critical patients in the ambulance, can it be quickly passed on the highway to prevent delays? The best time for patients to diagnose and treat. This is the origin of discussing whether ambulances should pay fees on the highway.
In fact, whether to pay the fee on the highway of ambulance is not a one-size-fits-all issue . On the one hand, this involves the nature of the highway. Some of my country's expressways focus on public welfare, while others focus on profitability. For profit-making expressways, their commercial attributes determine that they should not be free for ambulances; on the other hand, they involve the ambulance itself. It is obvious that when an ambulance does not carry patients, the expressway cannot be free; in addition, ambulances are divided into hospital ambulances and private ambulances. Private ambulances are purely market-oriented, and it is obvious that they cannot be ignored. What's more, there are some "counterfeit ambulances" and "black ambulances", which are already targets of severe legal crackdowns, and there is no way to talk about free.
In fact, generally speaking, when transporting patients, the charging structure of ambulances in public hospitals is also divided into several parts, such as medical care medical expenses, drug expenses, and vehicle expenses. According to relevant medical insurance regulations, the first two are It can be reimbursed, but car fares cannot be reimbursed. Therefore, for this part of the profit, it seems reasonable to have the transportation fee for ambulance units.
In other words, although ambulances have certain public attributes, people generally hope that ambulances can receive certain tolerance and preferential treatment when passing through highways, whether to free the expressways, or under what circumstances, Obviously, it cannot be generalized. At present, may be the most important thing to clarify is the definition of ambulance pass standards under different situations and vehicle attributes, and the real obstacles to different charging policies between different regions.
For the former, there are experts who recommend that regular ambulances be managed in a unified manner and networked interactive management. The hospital and toll station determine whether to perform tasks. Tolls are exempted from ambulances in the execution of tasks. For non-executive tasks, Ambulances charge normal fees. In addition, "counterfeit ambulances" and "black ambulances" should also be cracked down on. This matter tests the collaboration ability of different institutions and functional departments, and also involves the application of smart city management methods, which require coordinated resolution between different institutions, levels and regions.
Regarding the problems of whether tolls or not between provincial-bound expressways and different toll standards, due to the lack of clear definition of the "Regulations on Toll Highway Management", relevant departments should also refine the rules or issue relevant explanations to make policies converge as much as possible. Due to the different regulations in various places, ambulances keep quarreling when passing across regions, which will delay the opportunity for patients to treat.
After all, , no matter whether the ambulance is charged on the highway or not, it must be based on the basic premise of ensuring the patient's timely access. This is a systematic issue involving many factors, which requires transcending co-construction and co-governance of a single region and level, and thus realizing the sharing of interests of all relevant parties. At least, the bottom line of the matter is that critical patients cannot pay for the question of "whether the highway charges for ambulances."
(Source: Beijing News)
