Hi Tom! I´m from Germany, and althogh I´ve been reading about these Problems in your blog and elsewhrere, I don´t qiute understand. Why can´t control tell her when she phones 999, that she doesn´t need an ambulance? When she insists that you come, can´t you just say to the woman after looking after her: "This will still take some hours, wait and then take some taxi?" I think if your management would spend some of the few money in educating people at school and elsewhere, how and when an ambulance is to be called (among other things, like basic CPR), you would save a lot of this money at the other end. From what I´ve read, there ist much respect for the service, but few knowledge what it is about. Here, one would rather call the police if there is a drunk lying in the street, and they would decide if he needs an ambulance or a cell (in which he would be seen after by a doc, anyway). sorry for the bad english, Eva from Germany