This is not the US, the police does not show up to a fire or an emergency, why would they? They show up to an accident, and when you need an ambulance they will bring one.

The will also not stop and interrogate you when you walk to the side of the road. People usually have no interaction with the police outside of speeding tickets.

"get that first can often be very helpful"

Germany is not full of police patrolling the streets. Gladly we are no longer a police state. Usually I don't see any police for days, often not for weeks. Again, this is not the US. The only time you'll probably see police is going to train stations, airports or big tourist spots (and sometimes at parties that are too loud). In large cities, like Berlin, you might hear a siren and see a police car from time to time, depending on where you are. In smaller <1M people cities, not so.

Germany also has a proper health system and invests in ambulances and health instead of militarizing the police. So I can see your point, but it is irrelevant here.

Because they're trained first-responders, who have medical first aid training, vehicles with lights and sirens to move quickly through traffic, knowledge of the local area to navigate around road closures or ambiguous ___location descriptions, etc.

There are many situations where multiple sub-specialties of first-responders (police, firefighters, EMT, etc) are useful. The police aren't just showing up to arrest or shoot people, in a functioning society they can and do provide valuable service in assisting injured people, controlling traffic around car accidents, etc.

> Because they're trained first-responders, who have medical first aid training

In many parts of the US they are only trained to EMR level (if that) which isn't particularly useful. Most fire departments require everyone to be EMT and will often have a paramedic on board. Where I am, police are all EMR and will rarely be dispatched to a medical call (unless there's a threat of violence). They will be dispatched to vehicle accidents for traffic control.

Yes the ambulance and fire department is better trained for these things. However basic first aid (CPR) and an AED in the hands of someone with basic first aid training often beats the most trained professional who is arrives just a minute later. So dispatches will get whoever can get to the scene first there, as well as the right people.

Yes the police often are in the way in a fire real scene - but that is a lot better than all the bystanders watching the fire in the way instead. However it is hard to see how bad it could be, while easy to see how bad things are.

Police responding to everything whether or not there is an indication that they are necessary, and even (especially) when the indications are that they would be counterproductive is a US quirk with very high costs, not some kind of universal rule.

No. When your partner has an urgent medical issue, you call the ambulance, not the police.

If you require the police to respond to all medical emergencies, then you have to fund the police at a level which allows them to do that, often at the expense of funding the people who actually should be responding to a medical emergency.

Taking the attitude that the police must respond to all emergency calls even if the only indication of what capacities are needed are fire and/or ambulance services results in a distortion of local funding which makes emergency response worse (it also results in the police presence itself making the response to other things worse in cases where they were not needed, even considering the resources actually available at the time, without considering the effect of response policy on resource allocation -- police are not always neutral-to-beneficial.)

The fact that it is a common rule in the US does not make it right. The US is very bad, compared to other developed countries, at lots of things.

I've witnessed a lady falling down the stairs banging her head hard, blood everywhere. Called 112 in my country, a guy answered, and I calmly explained what happened, and I wanted someone coming there stat. "Nah" he says, he needs to ask me some questions first. One of the questions was: "is it serious?". This is no joke, I said "yeah, its fucking serious". "Okay" he says, "You should have called emergency services directly, but he'll do me one and connect me anyways(!)".

Then I had to repeat everything again and they've then reluctantly sent a team which by the way arrived in double the time it would take me to get there from their place.

Reminds me of those endless accountability sinks. Nobody gives a shit about anything as there is no accountability.