The National Ambulance Service will soon receive 178 new ambulance units, more than 20 new ambulance stations are under construction and 60 stations are currently being renovated.
Owing to this project, ambulance units will arrive at their destination within 15 minutes across 90 percent of the country, the Minister of State for Health announced on Tuesday in Kistarcsa, near Budapest.
Miklós Szócska described the multi-component EU project during a press conference held at the Kistarcsa production unit of the winner of the public procurement, Finnish company Profile Vehicles Oy. He underlined that according to the contract signed in October, the company group manufacturing the EU standard ambulance units will begin assembly of the Volkswagen and Mercedes based vehicles, which will be continuously put into operation at ambulance stations, in December.
The Minister of State for Health recalled that unfortunately, the government crisis that begin in January 2008 had put a hold on the procurement of new ambulance units, even though the EU fund available for this objective could have already been called on in 2007. Noticing the ageing of the ambulance vehicle pool, the competent Ministry has implemented significant developments within this field since the end of 2010 and now there is an opportunity to procure 178 state-of-the-art ambulance units by the end of August 2014.
The Kistarcsa production plant will manufacture B-type ambulances and C-type emergency response units, in addition to which 22 ambulance physician units will also be released at a later date. 70 new jobs have been created at the Kistarcsa plant where the vehicles are produced and 66 of the new employees were previously unemployed, the Minister of State emphasised.
The press conference revealed that 11.5 billion forints are available for the project entitled “Development of emergency care – rescue and air rescue”, and almost a third of this amount is being spent on the procurement of new ambulance units.
Director General Béla Burány of the National Ambulance Service told the press that the Service can currently ensure arrival within 15 minutes across 78 percent of the country, and with the expansion of the vehicle pool, the construction and renovation of ambulance stations, and through the further development of rescue management, this ratio will increase to 90 percent.
Márton Endre László, the Area Manager of the Hungarian subsidiary of Profile Vehicles Oy, promised that 32 new ambulance units would definitely be put into service in Hungary by next March. He also said that the Finnish factory, established in 1982, also exports vehicles to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and China. Regarding the vehicles the Hungarian ambulance stations will receive, he mentioned several benefits, such as the world class patient area, the high quality instruments, the security camera behind the windshield, as well as the solid superstructure of the vehicles that will protect the occupants of the vehicle in case of accident.
(MTI)
