The 12 new ambulances that should have been delivered 14 months ago to the different fire brigades in the Region are already in Portugal.
This is the only certainty that Pedro Ramos can say about these new vehicles, whose delivery has been delayed for several months, as reported by DIÁRIO in its print edition today.
The regional secretary for Health and Civil Protection points to the pandemic and the war as the main factors that have contributed to this delay, not forgetting that these constraints are transversal to the entire automotive sector, with delivery of vehicles taking several months due to lack stock of companies in the sector. “It’s reality,” he notes.
Furthermore, Pedro Ramos notes that, in the case of ambulances, the process tends to be even longer, since it is necessary to properly equip the vehicle for the specific purpose for which it is intended.
At stake is a public tender worth more than 1 million euros, which will allow the Region to go from a fleet of 37 ambulances to almost 50. The official, who was speaking as part of the visit he made, this morning, to a POCIR team , on duty in Funchal, once again pointed out the possibility of the Region providing one of its ambulances already in use to Cape Verde, an archipelago with which Madeira has been cooperating, namely through the Regional Health Service, in the implementation of a Pre-hospital emergency in that Atlantic region.