Tourist dies in Halkidiki after ambulance arrives over an hour later

A 63-year-old woman, a cruise tourist, died in Ouranoupolis, Halkidiki, when she fainted during lunch in a taverna and the ambulance need 1.15 hour to get there and provide essential aid. It is the third death in Greece due to ambulance delay since Sunday.

The woman lost consciousness while in a tavern in the area of Ouranoupoli early Wednesday afternoon, and her death highlighting once again the great shortcomings of the National Health System, since the EKAVB ambulance took over an hour to arrive at the scene.

The 63-year-old woman, a tourist from Romania, was on a cruise around Halkidiki local media thesstoday.gr reported.

The group disembarked at the port of Ouranoupoli and at around 2 in the afternoon, the woman felt unwell while she was in a tavern with the group. The EKAV service was immediately notified to go to the scene to provide first aid.

The issue is that the whole of Halkidiki has only five Health Centers and the distances between them are quite long, the local media reported.

So despite the fact that the EKAV ambulance started directly from the Agios Nikolaos Health Center to the settlement of Ouranoupoli, the distance it had to travel in time was 1 hour and 15 minutes.

While the ambulance was on its way, the tourist suffered a seizure and died of what it seems a heart attack.

Despite the CPR and resuscitation efforts with the store’s defibrillator, as well as the rescuers who rushed to the scene, the woman could not be helped.

The time of the woman’s death being determined at 4 in the afternoon, an autopsy is to determine the exact causes.

According to Skai TV, there are currently one million tourists in Halkidiki, northern Greece, and just four ambulances on duty to cover long distances away from each other.

The death of the Romanian woman, comes after a 19-year-old pregnant woman and her baby died in Nea Makri, 37 km away from Athens, on Tuesday, as the ambulance arrived 5 hours later. The young woman on the 8th month of pregnancy had “internal bleeding.” Some EKAV representatives blamed her relatives who did not give exact description of the incident resulting into “false estimation as not urgent” by the EKAV call center.

On Sunday, a 63-year-old woman died on the back of a farm pick up truck on the way to the Kos hospital as there was no ambulance to take her there. Τhe only ambulance on duty busy with another health incident.