| Summary: | Neðst á síðunni er hægt að nálgast greinina í heild sinni með því að smella á hlekkinn View/Open Introduction: The Health Centre at Kirkjubæjarklaustur serves a large rural district with a population a little over 600. Agriculture and various services including tourism are the main occupations. Almost 20% of the population are over 65 years of age, which is an unusually high figure compared to the rest of the country. Ambulance transports are one of the health centre's responsibilities. Most of these are surface transports to hospitals, 200-250 kilometres away. Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore and explain the nature of all ambulance transports provided by the Kirkjubæjarklaustur Health Centre from 1990-1996. Material and methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on all ambulance transports provided by the Kirkjubæjarklaustur Health Centre during the period. The data provided by the Health Centre and by transport personnel was used. Information was relatively easy to get since documentation was done by very few persons. The transports were looked at in terms of prevalence, age, gender, points of departure and destination, diagnosis, time of day, attending person and whether a local person or a tourist was being transported. Results: Annual ambulance transport prevalence is 50 for every 1000 inhabitants. The prevalence for the whole country is 72, for the city of Reykjavik 90. Tourists account for 27% of transports. Accidents were the reason for transport in almost one third of cases. Males and elderly persons account for a significant number of the transports. This is congruent with other studies. Ambulance transport decreased significantly during the last two years of the study period. The most plausible explanation of this is the opening of a 20 bed nursing home in the district in mid year 1994. Conclusions: Ambulance transport including the preparation of the sick or injured person is an important part of health care in this region. General practitioners need to be well versed in ...
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