Hatzolah emergency medical responder service: To save a life

Abstract

• "First responders" are people trained in advanced first aid who can respond at the same time as, and often more quickly than, ambulance services to suspected medical emergencies. • Hatzolah is a volunteer First Responder group, based on halakhic (Jewish legal) principles, in a localised area of metropolitan Melbourne with the highest density of Holocaust survivors outside Israel. Low numbers of "call-outs" to Victoria's Metropolitan Ambulance Service (MAS) from this community suggested that many were reluctant to make contact with a "uniformed" external agency. • Hatzolah is an autonomous organisation operating under adapted MAS clinical practice guidelines and clinical governance processe..