Speeding ticket issued to ambulance in İzmir

The issuance of a traffic ticket to an ambulance driver for speeding on Yeşildere Street in İzmir has become a major topic of discussion among healthcare workers. Ahmet Doğruyol, Chairman of the Birlik Sağlık Sen union, criticized this sanction and the attempt to pass the fine on to the personnel on duty.

Emphasizing that ambulances are an inseparable part of emergency health services regardless of whether they are transporting a patient, Doğruyol stated that healthcare workers are experiencing a loss of motivation due to such practices. According to Doğruyol, ambulances must be able to move quickly not only when transporting patients but also when responding to incidents or traveling to their service areas.

Doğruyol included the following statements in his remarks:

"A traffic ticket for an ambulance. Issuing traffic tickets to ambulances responding to emergency cases is punishing the public. Even if there is no patient inside a 112 ambulance, that ambulance is trying to reach its service area. If an ambulance moves slowly when there is no patient on board, it may result in reaching a citizen in need of an ambulance in that area later, perhaps even causing the citizen's death. Therefore, unless there is a highly abnormal situation, traffic tickets should not be issued to ambulances.

Ambulances are not official luxury vehicles. Even if there is no patient in the ambulance, it is either going to an incident or returning to its station. For this reason, ambulances are privileged vehicles in traffic, whether they are carrying a patient or not. The only thought of our healthcare workers on duty in the ambulance is to reach the incident as quickly as possible and get the patient to the hospital in the shortest time. They sometimes risk their own lives, aware that there are three other lives in that ambulance besides the patient, trying to get the patient to a destination a few minutes earlier.

Issuing a ticket to an ambulance for traveling at 98 km/h on Yeşildere Street in İzmir and attempting to make the healthcare personnel pay that fine is not the right approach. Just as it is not right to ticket an ambulance for going 98 km/h, it is also not right for the Provincial Health Directorate to make the personnel pay the fine. It is not a correct method to issue tickets to ambulances while simultaneously penalizing those who do not yield to them. Let us not break the enthusiasm of healthcare personnel."