Woman dies on Aigina beach because no ambulance driver on duty

A woman on the island of Aigina died helpless on Friday, because the local Health Center did not have an ambulance driver for her transfer. The incident led to a dispute between the health ministry and health care staff, with the latter to blame under-staffing and the minister to target the personnel.

Tragedy at Agia Marina beach

The 79-year-old woman lost her life under tragic circumstances on the beach of Agia Marina in the afternoon on Friday, August 22.

She was spotted floating unconscious in the water and she was pulled from the sea by other bathers.

She received first aid from a lifeguard and she came to her senses. Soon after she suffered a heart attack and a private doctor who happened to be at the beach performed a CPR. She recovered again and remained alive for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes.

During this whole time, there were repeated calls to the island’s Health Center to send an ambulance for the transfer of the woman there. The distance is about 20-25 minutes away. But no ambulance came.

Eyewitnesses told news website tvxs.gr that they constantly called the Health Center, which stated its inability to send an ambulance due to the lack of a driver. Similar calls were made to the Coast Guard, also without result.

In the end, the 79-year-old woman passed away.

Bathers who were present at the incident stressed to the website that the woman was conscious the entire time and could have been saved.

A foretold death due to the big, permanent shortages of the island’s only Health Center in medical and nursing staff, that is also responsible for the ambulances.

Health Minister vs Health Care Staff

Five days after the tragedy, the Health Ministry launched an internal investigation and according to the first findings, there are three ambulance drivers, however, none of them was on duty.

According to ANT1 TV, the doctor on duty has testified that she made repeated calls to all three of them, however, none of them responded.

However, doctors of the Attica Hospital Unions denounced to media that there should be 5 ambulance drivers and not just 3. “Three drivers cannot cover all shifts in a month,” Panos Papanikolaou, president of EINAP union, stressed.

Other unionists said that staff off duty is not obliged neither to have their mobile on nor to respond to calls.

Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis appeared on media determined to find out what went wrong and whose responsibility had been that there was no assigned shift for an ambulance driver. On a post on X and according to his favorite policy regarding criticism, he targeted the staff of the Health Center and even threatened with severe punishment to those responsible.

“If the Health Center is responsible, I will exhaust the severity that the law allows me,” the minister wrote.

In a letter to the minister, the Hospitals Workers Union denounced the minister’s efforts to “target our colleagues”, stressing that the under-staffing in the Health Center of Aigina has been known to the Ministry long ago.

“Three ambulance drivers have to cover 3 shifts of 8-hour each per day for 30 days per month,” they underlined.

It is noted that the island of Aigina is just 27 km away from Athens, and during the summer season the number of residents – 13,000- and visitors reaches 100,000 people. Especially over the weekends in the peak of the tourism season.