Paramedic here... If the bleeding is controlled, there's not really anything an ambulance is going to do other than give you an expensive ride to the hospital. Counting dispatch/response/on scene time, you'd likely get to the hospital just as quickly if someone drove you in their personal vehicle.

I'm not defending Tesla's practices here... I'm far more concerned about the other cases mentioned (workers passing out, feeling dizzy, etc).

The stuff Tesla is doing, allegedly, is only done by really shaddy companies.

Yes, medical care availability and quality suffer as the consequence of the European model, and that everybody regards it as "free" (despite having been taxed through the roof) doesn't help. On balance, it's probably better than the US system, but it's not the rose garden a large chunk of HN seems to think.

And nobody thinks health care is free, just universal. It might seem free as everybody is used to pay part of his salary every months but health care cost is a recurring topic over here.

Availability for emergencies, and ambulances are for emergencies, is by no means bad. There are medevac helicopters placed in a way to minimize response times. And they are covered by your basic insurance.

Availability can be an issue compared to private insurance due to budget constraints in the public model and the fact that doctors and hospitals have to live. Again, emergency services don't suffer from that. Could overall availability be better? Yes. Is availability overall satisfactory? I would say yes as well (point in case, general doctors in the countryside, there are not enough of those for a variety of reasons).

Ambulances are low risk and cheap somthey really should be used even down to ~0.1% chances of serious issues.

If the injury is higher (with the potential for compartment syndrome distal to the injury site, or closer to major blood vessels), then sure, I may be in a bit more of a hurry (a "bit" being the operative word there... slow is smooth, smooth is fast).

> If you crush or sever your fingers, you really do need to call an ambulance.

Why? It's not life threatening, you're diverting critical life-saving public resources from someone else, you can definitely get to a hospital faster on your own and probably faster with a ride share, and you are incurring a very high cost.

Furthermore, it's not like they get to the hospital and then are seen immediately because they showed up in an ambulance. They still have to wait in line because the injury is simply not severe

If they have first responders on site, there's no reason they can't get gauze and then go see a surgeon.

Questionable

you're diverting critical life-saving public resources from someone else

Why, do we have a desperate shortage of such resources? Then maybe we should build more of them instead of guilt tripping people who have suffered severe and perhaps permanent maiming.

Furthermore, it's not like they get to the hospital and then are seen immediately because they showed up in an ambulance. They still have to wait in line because the injury is simply not severe

Of course it's severe. It's not the worst thing that can happen to someone, but then ERs aren't swamped 24/7 either, and to the extent that they are overburdened we should do something about that rather than minimize the problem.

This is not true. Patients arriving in ambulances are triaged and helped according to need, just like anyone else.

This is something rather commonly stated and it's observably not true. I wonder what that's about, but I suspect it's a case of the way things are supposed to work (triage in the emergency room is supposed to not suck, but it's usually so bad that it is the weakest link in a patient's emergency care, even at a good hospital) and the way things actually work (riding in on the ambulance gets you in front of a doctor faster very close to 100% of the time).

For stuff like that there's nothing a paramedic will do that someone with basic first aid can't do. Until the victim is in surgery, there isn't a whole lot to do. Staunch the bleeding. Put the severed finger on ice. That's about it. Maybe you don't have much experience working in factories and shops where these sorts of accidents happen several times a year, but it's a gross overreaction to call medical professionals in. Once, in this shop this guy was cleaning out a paint mixer, and it somehow turned on while he had his arm in there. The mixing blade ripped his arm open, down to the bone from his shoulder to his wrist. We called an ambulance for that. What a mess, lol.

The gas station right next to my house has EMT vehicles almost every night hanging out and waiting to interveene in the area.