RESIDENTS of a string of remote mountain villages have had no ambulance service of their own for the past two years, putting lives at risk in an emergency.
At least seven communities – including Kambi, Farmakas, Apligi, Palechori Orinis, Palechori Morphou, Askas and Fterikoudi – have had no ambulance since staff shortages put an end to the service.
“We had an ambulance service two years ago. The ambulance was driven by volunteers from the community, but this stopped when there was no nurse to accompany the driver,” Palechori Orinis community leader Tassos Michaelides said.
He said the vehicle had been operated out of the Palechori Morphou health centre, which was responsible for the health needs of nine communities. As well as the above seven, two more communities have recently come under the centre’s jurisdiction, he said.
“The centre has two doctors and two nurses. The nurses work from 7.30am to 2.30pm daily and the doctors work in shifts, with one of them always on call. As a result there can be no ambulance service.”
He said this was because no nurse was ever available to ride with the ambulance in the afternoons or at night, only in the mornings. Regulations also prevented doctors from going in the ambulance without a nurse present, Michaelides said.
“Eventually what happened was people would call the ambulance drivers to come and collect a relative and the drivers wouldn’t go because there was no nurse to travel with them. People started to blame them and hold them responsible, when they were not responsible,” he said.
The drivers finally got tired of the situation and refused to operate the ambulance.
The vehicle initially remained at the Palechori Morphou health centre until its use was needed to help with the move from the old Nicosia general hospital to its new premises in Latsia.
“Since then, we haven’t even had an ambulance. But to bring it back for what?
Without a nurse it’ll simply be for decorative purposes,” the community leader said.
Michaelides said the community believed it had already lost one patient due to the lack of an ambulance.
“We can’t say for sure, but we believe had the ambulance been here there was an incident where a life would have been saved,” he said.
“Now in an emergency we have to drive people to hospital in Nicosia ourselves.
Sometimes though, there are cases where the patient can’t be moved and we have had to wait for hours for the ambulance to arrive.”
He said traffic congestion and the distance involved meant it could be the best part of two hours before an ambulance arrived to collect a patient.
“Just recently we had a little boy, aged six or seven, who broke his leg in the school yard and couldn’t be moved. He had to lie there for two hours until the ambulance came,” he said. The boy was yesterday still in hospital.
“Other times there have been cases of people breaking their pelvis in the middle of the road and having to lie there in the cold for hours until the ambulance comes from Nicosia. It’s a lot of trouble.”
Michaelides said other than the ambulance issue, the health centre itself was insufficiently staffed and did not meet the mountain region’s healthcare needs. He said the issue had been discussed with other community leaders and that they had agreed that the best option was to close both the Palechori health centre and the Klirou health centre (which is responsible for the healthcare of another 10 or 12 communities) and to create a new centre somewhere in between.
“The new centre should be properly staffed, with the right services and main specialities. It would need a pathologist, a paediatrician, a lab to conduct blood tests and draw blood, an x-ray machine and a 24-hour accident and emergency service,” he said.
“Patients needing other specialist care or inpatient treatment will be sent to Nicosia general hospital. We won’t have beds at the new centre so as to avoid the risk of rural residents getting poorer quality care.”
The community leader said he had spoken to the Health Minister yesterday and that Costas Kadis had been open to the idea.
“The minister is coming up here next week to visit the health centre and to see how we are dealing with the immediate problems. We are hopeful he’ll come up with a solution and that his response to our proposal [for a new health centre] will be a positive one,” Michaelides said.
The Health Minister said yesterday the ministry already had plans to create four district ambulance stations to cover rural areas’ needs. He also said the ministry would look at ways to restart the ambulance service at Palechori’s health centre.
