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THE NUMBER OF ambulance hoax calls has rocketed over the last six years, according to figures from the HSE that show over 4,000 were recieved last year.
Figures given to Fine Gael Deputy John O’Mahony by the HSE on its ambulance service show that the number of these has risen from 655 in 2007 to 4,329 in 2012 – an increase of 660 per cent in six years.
The 2012 figure is a drop on the previous year when 4,753 hoax calls were made.
In some instances, the people behind the calls may hang up once they are asked for further details but O’Mahony said that, in many cases, services are being dispatched unnecessarily to attend crises which have been “fabricated by people with nothing better to do with their time”.
In response to O’Mahony’s query the HSE said that data in relation to costs incurred as a result of hoax calls is not widely available and would take significant resources to compile.
“Whatever the cost may be in monetary terms, it is nothing in terms of the human cost that may be paid as a result of these stunts being carried out,” O’Mahony commented.
The Fine Gael TD is calling for penalties to be put in place to ensure that people who engage in this “deceitful practice” are held to account and “named and shamed”.
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That’s an absolute disgrace!!
Automatic 500 hours community service. Not pretend service, actual mowing lawns & picking up litter.
why are those responsible not being punished and held accountable already?
Because its impossible to prove. 999 from a pay phone is free, you can make a 112 call from a mobile that doesn’t have a SIM card in it. Invariably it’s teens that do it. It costs a fortune in resources and man hours to the emergency services who are already stretched in ever tightening budgets, not to mention tying up their personal in hoax situations when their services may be badly needed elsewhere.
The ironic thing is the people that make these calls are invariably the ones that use them the most.
Phone identifying number is sent regardless of sim status.
ah come on with the all the developments in technology , gps tagging , being able to find my iphone on a map automatically , it surely cant be beyond our ability to introduce fines or penalties and follow though with enforcement , you can be damn sure if teens parents were asked to pay fines or started taking mobiles off teens as punishment they would be the quickest way to reducing the high number of fakes calls and there would be a reduction in this crap.
Locating the phone via these methods may be easy, but proving who made the call is different
@green burka, that’s all well and good but how do you prove who made the call? Phones get sold on and the vast majority of phone nos and handsets owned by the type of idiots who make these calls are unregistered. You can now buy a phone with €5 credit for 20 quid. It would be great to be able to so it and as Dave H suggested; fine the parents the cost of the call out. Unfortunately until there is proper regulation brought in in relation to mobile phones and registering them this will continue.
You can tell what sim is in what phone and what sites are visited from that phone and sim. Once you have that you have their Facebook and twitter and they can be traced.
What the f*ck is wrong with people?!?
Not doubt these same people will winge about how the government is wasting money, yet they themselves are wasting massive amounts will fake calls.
..& at least 10 times that many for people who didn’t need one!
Irish people are hypochondriacs!
I fail to understand why so many people turn up to A&E without anything near an emergency..
I know, I was visiting my dad in a&e before and a young girl of about 20 came in because she had the vomiting bug since that morning, so she comes in and gives it to people in casualty when there’s nothing that can be done unless you’re dehydrated but she was drinking water so I doubt she was.
People have nothing better to do with their lives. Sad really!
Disgraceful thoese caught should be put in prison for six months and also have the pleasure of paying for there stay in prison
Zero tolerance
Hope whoever you people are that you, or your loved ones, are never left waiting while ambulance out on a hoax call. Bet you would be whinging about how long ambulance takes to answer call. Feckn shame on you.
The people who do this will feel the effect of karma when they or a loved one is left waiting on an ambulance and don’t make it to hospital on time
€1000 fine and 100 hour community service that has to be completed within one calander month. Or wages/dole will be docked at source and the fine doubled and the outstanding community service hours charged at the minimum wage rate.
Kids and the underaged who do it should be forced to see the outcome of a person who needed an ambulance and didnt get it because of crank calls.
I hate to say it but me and my friends done it once as children. A long time ago. We honestly didn’t realise what harm we were doing and saw it as a bit of fun. By nature children are less responsible than adults and don’t see the risks involved. We need to educate our children on the dangers of doing this as I presume an adult who does this is beyond learning. Sorry!
I blame the banks and Bertie.
They would stop if they had to pay for cost of personnel, wasting emergency services time should be classed as a crime.
Hoax caller should be brought before the courts and prosecuted sadly this is not done. The ramifications for hoax calls is 2 fold, firstly if an ambulance is dispatched to a bogus call it takes time because we have to be sure if in fact it is bogus in the first place, secondly when we drive on blues & twos we put other roads users at risk not to mention we drive on our own licenses and if we crash we have to declare it to our insurance company’s and this is a cost to all paramedics etc…Prosecute them… Bogus calls cost lives…
How is there a cost involved?
“In response to O’Mahony’s query the HSE said that data in relation to costs incurred as a result of hoax calls is not widely available and would take significant resources to compile.”
When someone rings up, their location is made available to the emergence services operator, its only a matter of storing/logginh that in a database, thats a few days work for anyone worth their salt as a DB admin.
The costs of responding to the calls?
Wages, vehicles, fuel etc etc….?
And before you say they’d be on duty already with wages paid remember that the more hoax calls means more crews need to be on duty
My granny died due to a hoax call. They went to the location of the hoax call and there was nothing there my granny had to sit and wait for one but sadly died. I was not alive but my mam tells me about it my mam was only 18 and had to hold her mam who was dieing and try to help her im proud of my mam for being brave but these hoax calls means i never had nanny. There sould be jail time for hoax calls due a event similr to this happening. I may never have seen my nanny but i love her and wish i got the chance to know her
I suspect that a very high percentage of these calls are made by babies and kids messing around with phones, both landline and mobile.
So I don’t think it’s quite as malicious as the statistics make out.
As long as the main emergency number remains “999″, there are going to be “hoaxes” or false alarms.
The “112″ emergency number [more childproof] hasn’t really caught on enough to enable a proper nationwide switchover.
Why did everyone in Europe, except for ourselves and UK, decide to switch over to such an inconvenient number as 112?
It’s because kids like pressing buttons over and over and over again – like 999. It has been proven that a child is much less likely to press 112.
There are definitely some weirdos out there …but there certainly aren’t 4,329 nutcases calling the emergency services every year.
I feel like I’m reading the MailOnline sometimes.
Our then 20 month old got a hold of the husband s mobile one Sunday morning and instead of doing the usual browse to YouTube for nursery rhymes, got into the dialer and dialed the emergency services. Phone was on flight mode. But as we know, emergency numbers can be dialled no matter what. We were woken by him babbling and us hearing a muffled voice on the line asking to speak to Mammy or daddy. Husband quickly advised there was no emergency, apologised and got off the line. Mortified!
As no location was given etc. no call out was initiated.
If there is a call out triggered as mentioned in the above article, I guess that means it probably isn’t accidental or babies but actual prank calls? And that should be severely punished. The ambulance going on that call out could be the only one in the vicinity which could have dire consequences for some other poor sod!
Dave, I agree with you. (Red thumbs a-go!)
I think there could possibly be a correlation between the increase in accidental 999 calls and the rise of smart phone/iphone users. Terribly easy to accidentally get into an emergency call there…Not to mention how easy it is for a baby/tot to unlock and press emergency call! Of course you watch them like a hawk but it happens way too easily.
We’ve noticed with some models of smart phones putting them on flight mode so junior CANNOT go dialling Japan, it becomes even easier to go straight to an emergency call. That is the first thing that comes up.
Having said that…those calls should still not result in ambulances being sent hither and tither…Because as soon as you notice, you disconnect the call and if someone is already on the other line, you inform them there is no emergency.
I have difficulty believing over 4000 people a year purposely dial 999 to send an ambulance on a wild goose chase. And if they indeed do, give them plenty community hours!
exactly the same thing happened to me when my son was the same age.i was mortified and very apologetic.the operator was very nice about it in fairness.guess it happens a lot.
The type of call you are talking about, where a child dials 999, is not a big problem, usually the child will take to the operator and they get the child to get mam or dad on the phone, it where someone dial 999 and says ” I’m having a heart attack” and hand up, we have to search for them in a housing estate etc.. That’s the problem..
Are there really that many of them? What would anyone possess to do that? It’d be very disheartening if there are that many genuine hoax calls.
Not just kids, the lock screen on my phone has an emergency call button next to the swipe to unlock thing. I accidentally pressed it once without realising it. It was on the line for about 10 seconds I said it was a mistake and got some abuse for it. I wish there was a way to disable or move that button, I don’t want to accidentally press it again.
Forced hard labor and a five digit fine
Hope these sons of b*tches are left waiting on an ambulance one day
There’s no penalty for that? I’m pretty sure my mum told me I would go to prison forever for even thinking about prank calling 999
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