The Vila Real de Santo António City Council demands, in a statement, the "immediate reinforcement" of pre-hospital emergency means, after having learned, "with extreme concern", of reports of "several situations that occurred in the county, in recent days, in which several emergency episodes have not had the proper assistance from the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM) / Guidance Center for Urgent Patients (CODU)».
The VRSA local authority, chaired by the social democrat Luís Gomes, also president of the PSD/Algarve, stresses that «the existence of effective means of assistance is an elementary right of the resident and floating population of Vila Real de Santo António and any County".
One of the cases referred to by the municipality is that of a lady residing in VRSA, who, «after four calls to the national emergency number 112, without any response, was obliged to contact the Civil Protection services of VRSA who, immediately, they then alerted INEM through an internal number».
"The case takes on even more worrying contours as INEM initially confirms the dispatch of an ambulance and, later, makes new contact with the alerter and informs that there is no emergency vehicle available, suggesting the transport of the victim in a private vehicle, 86 years old, who was unconscious, mouth to the side, was vomiting and was urinating and defected, with a blood pressure of 20/25”, continues the Chamber.
"Although no INEM rescue vehicle was ever moved, the victim was eventually transported to the VRSA SUB by the VRSA firefighters who, managing to remove a vehicle from another service - and at the request of Civil Protection - affected the even for the help of the victim», adds the communiqué from the municipality.
with all of this, «from the initial contact of the alert to the INEM, until the actual transport of the victim to the VRSA SUB, it took approximately one hour, since not only was the national emergency number not reachable, but also the INEM did not have emergency vehicles available at the time».
As a result, and given the "seriousness of the situation", the VRSA municipality will "question the responsible entities about the reasons behind this worrying episode and demands the immediate reinforcement of emergency resources at the pre-hospital level in VRSA, to similar to what is done for police and forest fire fighting devices in the summer period».
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