Beyond Australian-Filipino Michael Deakin’s very imposing physical presence is a man with a lot of compassion and heart.
Deakin is the managing director of Lifeline Ambulance Rescue Inc., the country’s first and only dedicated Emergency Quick Response service outfit. For him, what they do is not a business. He said they are all about saving lives.
Speaking from their office in Parañaque City, he described how they evolved the business from its previous ownership, where down payment was then a requirement before service was provided.
“This was started before by 100 doctors, and doctors run the business like it was a hospital. There is a reason every patient has a companion. Someone needs to pay,” Deakin said.
He said now they dispatch the bill after three days and, when necessary, they even park their ambulance inside the hospital and surrender the keys as a guarantee for the expenses the patient will incur.
“We trust and believe they will do the right thing,” Deakin said, in describing the families of the patients they serve and the hospitals where they are taken.
Deakin said the public trust in their system has resulted in a membership that has risen from only 45,000 in 1999 to 992,000 this year.
The humble beginning
Deakin, together with his two brothers and their mother, moved to Australia in 1986 with no intentions of coming back into the country.
Although they blended in well with their community because of their physical appearance, in Australia, they still had to earn everything.
Deakin said they had to work to support their studies. It was from there that he learned the value of work and discipline.
“We went from high-end school in the Philippines to struggling,” he quipped.
Eventually, Deakin graduated with a degree in hotel and restaurant management from Erindale College in Canberra.
Deakin then worked his way up the ladder in the industry. From being a dishwasher in a hotel, he eventually became a restaurant manager, as his career took him to establishments from Perth to Kimberley.
He still keeps the nametags from all his hotel-and-restaurant postings in a frame inside his Lifeline office to serve as a reminder of his beginnings.
Then came the unexpected move back to the Philippines to become the new food-and-beverage director of the 15-hectare Mimosa Leisure Estate in Pampanga. It was an Asian posting to fast-track his career to eventually become a hotel general manager.
A rough return
Upon arriving at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Deakin said he wanted to turn around and fly back to Australia immediately.
“It stinks at the airport. It was an assault on the senses. I wanted to get back on the plane. But my commitment pushed me. I have never reneged on a contract,” Deakin said.
But after working in Mimosa for close to two years, nothing prepared Deakin for what would happen in late-1999.
Former Philippine President Joseph E. Estrada ordered the government takeover of Mimosa, after it failed to pay its obligations, which at that time amounted to P325 million.
“I have seen worst, but the guns freaked me out. They were pointed in my head,” Deakin said of the events that unfolded in Mimosa on December 1, 1999.
Deakin said that during his time in the Outbacks, he had experienced working in bars where they are protected by cages from the riots that could ensue. But, he said, it was different in Mimosa, when the Philippine Army’s Special Action Force was involved.
After the ordeal in Mimosa, Deakin was hired as an emergency-replacement general manager at The Manila Yacht Club. He expected to be there only for a year, then moving out of Asia again.
It was his stint at The Manila Yacht Club where he met people involved with Lifeline Arrows, the precursor to his present company.
The beginning of something special
Deakin said that, as president of Lifeline, his job was to take over its operations and shut it down, or have the company turn around by starting to generate revenues.
He said the company at that time was hemorrhaging, as a result of having too many owners.
Then two companies came in, where a quasireorganization happened and the ownership of the original owners was diluted.
But then, when the funding stopped, Deakin took it upon himself for Lifeline’s operations to continue.
“I had no salary for months. I was borrowing to stay alive,” Deakin said of their time in 2005.
He told himself that they should never stop their operations, because in 2005 alone they were already doing 2080 ambulance runs.
“We cannot close. We were saving lives,” he said, while adding that, for that year, he was owed over a million-peso in salary.
So, with borrowed cash from his father-in-law, Deakin bought one ambulance at 12-percent interest. Eventually, they had five more that were sold to his friends, which they then rented on a monthly basis.
The following year, Deakin said they have managed to pay off all their debts. Another good thing that happened was their membership started growing fast.
“Members started coming to me,” he said, while adding that they started to approach buildings and villages collectively.
It was the start of the remarkable turnaround for the company.
Effectively, since 1999, when they only had 565 ambulance runs, Lifeline last year carried out 14,608 runs, including airlifts covering areas from Bulacan in the north all the way to Batangas in the south.
Today Lifeline is accredited by the Australasian Registry Emergency Medical Technicians (AREMT), South East Asia Prehospital Emergency College and the United States National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT).
It boats of a well-trained staff of 260 and 40 fully equipped ambulances, which they expect to grow to 80 over the next five years.
Outside of its core service, Lifeline also now has six clinics, which are spread from Katipunan in Quezon City to Ayala Alabang that have dental, diagnostics and drug-testing capabilities.
It also now has Home Care, where it offers medical-care service for its members right in their own homes; and the Preventive Emergency Initiative, where it provides drivers to those who are drunk, too tired, or medically incapable to drive home.
The Department of Health has already commended Lifeline for being the emergency medical-service company that provides the most in terms of quality, performance and cost efficiency.
It has also been cited by numerous award-giving bodies for the work it does, including the MVP Bossing Award in 2013 and the National Customers Choice Annual Awards in 2014 as the Most Outstanding Ambulance Service in the country.
Still the bottom line
For Deakin, even with all their success, the bottom line for them remains saving people’s lives.
“If it is within the golden hour and they manage to call us in 60 minutes, there is a good chance for survival. We assess and stabilize. Everything you need is in the ambulance,” Deakin said.
He said they can guarantee a response time of 12 to 30 minutes from point of dispatch.
They also do not limit their service to members. They also lend a hand without hesitation to indigents and to any accident in their covered area where they are requested to assist.
The key to all of these is their Red Room, the nerve center of their operations, with 16-911 as their hot-line number. It is there where they have an internationally awarded radio-communication network, a computerized database and a detailed map of Metro Manila.
From there, they dispatch the nearest ambulance; offer support and medical advice; provides updates on the traffic situation; and coordinates with their doctors.
Although admitting that he cannot be too emotionally attached to what they do, Deakin still gets affected by newborn babies, some of whom they have delivered, and the unnecessary deaths.
To ensure that they always have qualified staff, Deakin said they now have the Lifeline EMS Academy, where they train individuals to become emergency-medical technicians.
It is where enrollees immediately become members of NAEMT and AREMT, and are guaranteed with employment in Lifeline after completing the two-month course.
Deakin said those enrolled have to go through what they term as “Hell Night,” where they will be sleep-deprived with one drill following immediately after another, until they reach their breaking point.
Deakin said he did the course himself, and realized from the experience that he should not just be looking at their financial performance, like most business executives.