Death of woman on Kos underscores ambulance shortage on islands

The death of a 63-year-old woman on the eastern Aegean island of Kos on Sunday has underscored serious medical service shortages on the Greek isles and promoted fresh calls from for more staff and equipment.

The woman, who had been suffering from health problems, died in the back of a pickup truck as she was being driven to the local medical center after she collapsed, while the island’s only ambulance was responding to another emergency. The exact cause of her death will be determined by a medical examiner.

Responding to the incident on Tuesday, the unionist representing Kos’ ambulance service (EKAV), sounded the alarm about serious shortages all over the islands and the added pressure from the summer tourism influx.

Kos, Konstantinos Tsambis told Kathimerini, has seven permanent and three temporary emergency medics when it takes 11 people to properly staff the island’s single ambulance on a 24-basis, while adding that the island’s population more than trebles in the summer.

“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been enough available staff to deal with this problem for several years now. We’ve only had one ambulance since last August, for winter and summer. And right now, there are around 150,000 people on the island,”  he said.
His concerns were echoed by the local representative of the country’s medical association, Garyfalia Karanasiou, who said that Sunday’s incident “is not unprecedented.”

“This is an island with 40,000 permanent residents and is the third biggest tourist destination. The shortages have not been covered. The necessary people have not been hired and the result is tragic incidents like this. That woman could have been our own other or sister,” Karanasiou stressed.

She said that a new ambulance has been sent to the island but has not been put into circulation because of the staff shortages.