INEM reinforced with 100 ambulances to face the winter

New Special Pre-Hospital Emergency Device will operate until February and is a “reinforcement of resources” for the flu season.

The Ministry of Health announced that it will create 100 new fire teams that will help face the time of greatest need (with more occurrences of flu activity and other types of viruses)between December 1st and February 28th.

Cited by , the Ministry of Health wrote in a statement to which the newspaper had access and which should be published soon in the Official Gazette of the Union that it is “fundamental ensure the response capacity of pre-hospital emergency aid means in order to respond to the predictable increase in emergencies related to influenza and other respiratory viruses”.

The teams will be made up of an ambulance and two firefighters each (i.e. 200 professionals in total), and fall under the Special Pre-Hospital Emergency Device. They want to help resolve “any additional operational difficulties that may occur in certain geographic areas”.

The Ministry also wants it to be possible to maintain “normal levels of response and reaction time to simultaneity”, says Público.

The teams will work in coordination with the Portuguese Firefighters League (LBP) and will have an impact on “pre-hospital emergency activity and the secondary transport of patients in urgent inter-hospital transfersvery urgent or emergent, as recommended by the Urgent Patient Guidance Center (CODU)”.

Antonio Nunespresident of LBP, also told PÚBLICO that next Friday he will meet with the president of INEM to “discuss the selection criteria for locations where they will be needed” the teams, according to “statistical data”.

“Experience tells us that During the flu season there is greater access to emergency services. This usually translates into longer waiting times and whenever ambulances are mobilized, they are often not released as soon as would be desirable”, he adds.

He also points out two solutions to this problem: the creation of screening stations in hospitals dedicated to patients taken by ambulance and increase the supply of ambulances.

Firefighters on the new teams should receive 4.78 euros per hour, ahead of Antonio Nunes — the equivalent of the hourly rate of the ordered national minimum.

The union of pre-hospital emergency technicians, several associations of these professionals and the replacement president of INEM, Sérgio Janeiro, will be heard today in the Assembly of the Republic.