A law has been proposed in Iceland which takes emergency response away from the local authorities and gives it to the Police Chief, who resides in Reykjavik. At the same time, this law would make it illegal to help someone who has had an accident unless you have express permission from the Police Chief himself.
All rescue equipment would be centered in Reykjavik, inaccessible without the permission of the Police Chief.
Say something happens on the other side of the country, for example in Akureyri. Someone arrives on the site of the accident, and in stead of following sensible procedures, this person stands idly by, calling Reykjavik. He gets patched through, explains the problem, asks if he may go and stop the problem and maybe do some lifesaving first aid, gets put through to the Police Chief, explains the problem again, asks his question again and explains his abilities, in this case we say he knows basic first aid and has been a scout for a while, the police chief thinks about it, and then gives him his allowance to go and help the casualties.
At this point, our man can approach the site and do the basic lifesaving first aid that he knows, while a rescue team is dispatched by helicopter or airplane, expected to arrive in Akureyri in about half an hour - an hour.
The man approaches his casualties who have now been bleeding/choking/panicking for 5-15 minutes longer than necessary and tries to save them.
First aid is often hinged on a quick response. If you get to a casualty who isn't breathing and you get started on CPR immediately, there is a chance that you got there fast enough to keep their body functioning. You will usually need to be replaced by professionals with appropriate medical equipment within half an hour, because if it goes on much longer than that your casualty is not going to make it.
If someone is bleeding you need to apply pressure, calm them down, raise the injured body part and make sure that they don't freeze. This is no huge task, but it must be done before they loose too much blood.
Panicking people can be dangerous, they might try to help their injured friends/family and most often they do more bad than good.
The list goes on. More often than not, a quick response makes the difference between life and death.
Further, bringing people from Rekjavik to each rural area means that they will need guides to show them around, they cannot as easily be dispatched in small teams, they cannot as easily find their way, you might be looking at further casualties in form of rescue teams that got lost, because they are city-people who don't know the area. This can be remedied by good training, but only someone with a good knowledge base in the area of emergency rescue would recognize this. The Police Chief does not have that knowledge base nor the interest required to run this operation efficiently.
Additionally, time plays its part again. No matter how well trained a team is, it will take time for them to get ready, and if they need to travel across the country to get to their casualties, this will add another large amount of time to the preparation process.
Weather is another obstacle. What if there is a flood? A storm? A fire? There are many ways in which the weather can hinder a quick rescue. Frost, fog or heavy rain are also possibilities, and in harsh weather conditions accidents are more prone to happen.
Basically, this system is inefficient, irresponsible and quite bluntly retarded. It cannot possibly be in the interest of the people, and thus shouldn't be in the interest of the politicians representing them.
They speak of outsourcing and delegation, but they try to get their grubby little hands in as much power as they can, regardless of the best interests of the country.
