Emergency Care for Pets: First-ever pet ambulance provides one-stop service in HK

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03:18

When you have a medical emergency, you call the hospital or an ambulance. But what if it's your four-legged friend who's in trouble? In Hong Kong, there's an ambulance service just for pets, if it's medically necessary. CGTN's Zhu Dan reports.

In an emergency situation, you want the best care. And you want it fast. You dial the emergency number, and help is on the way. But for years, there was no emergency service for pets in Hong Kong until NOW.

DOMINIC ABRAHAM WON MARKETING DIRECTOR, PET AMBULANCE "Pet ambulance services provide one-stop service on first aid, and carry and delivery, and booking clinics in advance, taking care of both the pet and the pet owners."

Taking pets big and small to doctor's appointments, checkups and providing on-the-spot care for emergencies, Dominic says their passion for animals is why they do it.

DOMINIC ABRAHAM WON MARKETING DIRECTOR, PET AMBULANCE "Our team is formed by pet lovers, most of us have experience going home after a long day of work and found out our pet is sick. Then (we) carry the pet and look for transportation to the pet clinic, and finally realize they are either closed or already full of bookings."

The emergency service started out of a modified SUV, which was later converted into an actual ambulance. It's now fully equipped with oxygen tanks, bandages and medical supplies.

DOMINIC ABRAHAM WON MARKETING DIRECTOR, PET AMBULANCE "As we are currently having 3 ambulances on service, our arrival time after receiving the call averages 26 minutes. In our experience, it takes less than an hour from the call to the time of arrival at the clinic for treatment."

Full hearts, and fully trained. Pets now more than ever are part of the family.

They launched the service in March of this year, and have received 12 calls for ambulance services in just a month. All it takes is one call, and help is on the way.

DOMINIC ABRAHAM WON MARKETING DIRECTOR, PET AMBULANCE "Pets are human's friends, and as a friend, pets should enjoy and deserve equal rights as human for having same standard of medical service."

ZHU DAN HONG KONG "I went with the team on a ride along. It was pretty exciting. But Dominic says the difficult thing is that it's not yet legal to put an ambulance alarm on when they deliver the pet. He hopes that can be agreed on by the HK government, all they want is a faster response time for the pets they serve. Zhu Dan, CGTN, Hong Kong."