Safeguard now offers its clients medical emergency response services

Safeguard Security is now offering its rapid response service clients assistance in medical emergencies, enabling them to be taken to hospital by ambulance without having to produce a medical aid card or make any payment to the ambulance service.

In Harare and Victoria Falls it has partnered with Ace Air and Ambulance for the provision of life support ambulance services to its customers in a medical emergency.

In a medical emergency the Safeguard rapid response client can press the medical emergency panic button on the Safeguard alarm keypad, where this button has been connected to the alarm system, or press the security panic button and explain when Safeguard phones that there is a medical emergency.

Rapid response clients are paying an additional one dollar per month on top of their regular response payment for this service, unless they opt out of it.

This enables them to alert Safeguard if anyone on their property has a medical emergency. A Safeguard response team, members of which are first aid trained, is then dispatched to their premises, while Ace dispatches an ambulance with two advanced life support paramedics on board.

The ambulance has on board life support equipment and the drugs needed for various types of medical emergency, which the paramedics, who are experienced and have undergone advanced paramedic training, utilise to ensure the patient is stabilised and remains in a stable condition throughout the journey to hospital.

This means that medical assistance is being provided even before the patient reaches the hospital. Ace has a doctor on call all the time to offer the paramedics support.

Already, since the service was introduced last month, Ace has responded to three or four medical emergency calls from Safeguard on behalf of its clients.

 "In a medical emergency speed of response is crucial. This partnership between Safeguard and Ace makes it possible for our rapid response customers to obtain help just by pressing a panic button. Our nearest response team will respond immediately and so will Ace," commented Safeguard Security chief executive Andrew Mallon. "When the ambulance arrives the paramedics will stabilise the patient and transport him or her with life support to hospital," he said.

 "There is none of the hassle of having to produce a medical aid card or cash. There is no charge for the ambulance service. The additional one dollar a month that our clients are paying covers the service that Ace provides.

 "Treatment begins when the ambulance and paramedics arrive," he said. "There is no charge for this. It is only the hospital charges and treatment at the hospital that the patient or the patient's relatives or medical aid society have to take care of.

"Our customers' lives are important to us. We would like to assist them not only when there is a security emergency but when there is a life threatening medical emergency as well. That is why we have formed this partnership with Ace.

"It is also why our medical emergency panic button is now standard on all our new alarm installations. Those who do not have the medical emergency panic button on our keypad connected to the alarm system can request us to connect it. We will connect it free of charge.

"However, even if the medical emergency panic button has not been connected, our medical emergency service can still be accessed by pressing the normal panic button and explaining it is a medical emergency when our response centre calls them," he said.

He added that, while the Ace ambulance service is only available in Harare and Victoria Falls, Safeguard has formed a partnership with another ambulance service for emergency transportation by ambulance to hospital in other parts of the country.