“If she moves her arms and legs, put her in a car and let and bring her over.” This was the response neighbors of an injured woman received from the ambulance service on the island of Ikaria. The neighbors loaded the woman on a rural pick up cart and transferred her to the health center.
The woman fell and got injured in the yard of her home in the village of Evdilos.
The only ambulance was underway with another incident and it would need one and a half hour to reach the village, a local denounced the issue with a post on Facebook.
“I am reporting an incident that took place yesterday at noon in Evdilos… a woman fell and hit in the yard of her house… residents rushed to help her and I personally called for an ambulance to pick her up… to my great surprise I was informed that the the only on-call ambulance is located in Agios Kyrikos and it would take over an hour and a half to arrive as it was underway with another patient…
I reached out to the health center to see if there is any other way we can help the woman and maybe we can get instructions on how we can transport her safely and without causing further problems to her health as she was in pain and unable to move…
The answer was “if she moves her arms and legs put her in a car and bring her here”.. we tried for a while to think of the best way to transport her… finally we put her in a blanket with a pillow for her head then we placed her inside a farm vehicle because the woman could not sit and had to remain in a lying position..
In the year 2022 I think the conditions are unacceptable… I can’t digest that the only way the patient could be transported was on a pickup truck !!!
The island has two ambulances…why is only one on duty?? Is it possible for one vehicle to serve the whole island..????
Shame and disgrace..”
the incident took place on July 14.
In a similar incident this time in Hania village on Mt Pilio on Monday, July 18, another woman who fell and got injured had to be transported with a pick-up truck, because the ambulance was available but there was no driver on duty.
According to local media gegonotanews.gr, the woman was working on the fields and she fell from a height of 3 meters.
When the pick-up truck reached the health center in Zagora, the ambulance arrived later to transfer her to the hospital in Volos.
the accident took place at 4 o’ clock in the afternoon, the injured patient reached the hospital 3 hours later.
“it is not the first time that such incidents take place in the health centers of the regional unit of Magnisia, and especially when it comes to ambulance drivers. In the most health centers there is only one driver’s shift, with the result that the ambulance is available but not the driver,” noted the local news website gegonotanews.gr.
PS In Greece 2.0.22, if you don’t have a pick-up truck around, you can die on the spot, just because the conservative government prefers to hire priests and policemen than staff for the health sector.
In four years the government did not learn … how surprising
https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2018/09/06/kalymnos-british-tourist-dead/
It’s nice to learn all Conservative governments are the same everywhere. Here, too, health care is understaffed and getting worse. Nurses are leaving to go work in supermarkets where the conditions are better. Public service employees are limited to 1% raise while inflation is at 8% and rising. And the government? On vacation.