The government is moving to crack down on so-called “fake ambulances” that illegally use emergency vehicles for personal purposes or nonurgent transport, amid concerns that such abuses are risking the lives of patients.
According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare Wednesday, under a new plan, all ambulances will be required to transmit their GPS location data in real time to the national center, allowing authorities to monitor operations and flag suspicious movements.
The ministry said it will discuss the issue Thursday at the inaugural meeting of its task force launched last month to rectify irregularities in the nation’s medical and welfare system.
Private ambulances play a key role in Korea’s emergency transport system, handling nearly 70 percent of intermedical facility transfers. But some recent cases of vehicles being used to shuttle celebrities under the cover of sirens and lights have sparked public backlash, with critics warning such abuses can delay real emergencies and erode trust.
Through inspections conducted between July and September last year, the central and local governments uncovered 94 violations at 88 emergency vehicle operators. Most cases were related to failures in the management of operational records. Serious offenses such as transfers outside authorized service areas, excessive billing and nonmedical use were also found. In one case, an ambulance was parked near a staff member’s home and used for commuting.
Officials say the violations exposed the limits of document-based oversight, which relies on operators’ own logs and receipts and makes real-time enforcement difficult. To fix this, they plan to manage ambulance operations using real-time GPS data, mandating that all vehicles send their location to the National Emergency Medical Center whenever they are in service so officials can monitor journeys at all times.
Legislation efforts are already being made at the National Assembly. Earlier this year, Rep. Seo Young-seok of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea proposed a bill to shift ambulance oversight from paper-based checks to a fully digital system, requiring government officials to build platforms that collect and manage location data and obliging operators to transmit real-time GPS information whenever their vehicles are in service.
Source: Korea Times News
