Emergency calls made by 940,000 patients last year

The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs said Friday that a total of 945,834 patients benefited from the 119 emergency phone line last year, down 0.6 percent from 951,867 of the previous year.

A total of 266,123 callers, or 28.1 percent of all callers, used the service to report cases of serious illness, followed by 236,270 or 25 percent who turned to the service for treatment of chronic illnesses.

Some 190,000 or 20.3 percent of all callers used it to report injuries from various accidents, of which 150,867 or 16 percent were reports of traffic accidents. A total of 16,921 or 1.8 percent all users were drug addicts and 9,517 or 1 percent were pregnant women.

Ministry officials said that the total numbers of 119 callers decreased slightly last year after non-emergency patients were banned from using it but that the number of emergency patients using the service is on the rise.