Tourist dies in Halkidiki after waiting more than 1 hour for ambulance to arrive

A 63-year-old woman who arrived in Ouranoupolis from a cruise ship died after she passed out while having lunch at a tavern, and it took an ambulance 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there and provide the necessary assistance. This is the third death in Greece due to the delay of the ambulance since Sunday.

The woman collapsed while in a tavern in the Ouranoupoli area on Wednesday, and her death once again highlighted the great shortcomings of the national health system, as it took more than an hour for the ΕΚΑΒ ambulance to arrive on the scene.

The 63-year-old woman, a tourist from Romania, was on a cruise in Halkidiki, according to local media thesstoday.gr.

The group landed at the port of Ouranoupoli, and around 2 pm the woman began to feel unwell while in the tavern with the group. The ΕΚΑΒ service was immediately called to the scene for first aid.

The problem is that there are only five medical centers in all Halkidiki, and the distances between them are many tens of kilometers, local media report.

Therefore, despite the fact that the EKAV ambulance went directly from the medical center of Agios Nikolaos to the village of Ouranoupoli, the distance it had to cover was 1 hour and 15 minutes.

While the ambulance was on the way, the tourist had a seizure, and she died, apparently from a heart attack.

Despite the efforts of artificial respiration and resuscitation with the help of a defibrillator, as well as an ambulance team that arrived at the scene, it was not possible to help the woman.

The woman’s time of death is set at 4 p.m., and an autopsy should establish the exact cause.

According to Skai TV, one million tourists are currently in Halkidiki, northern Greece, and only four ambulances are on duty, traveling long distances to help those in need.

The death of a Romanian woman came after Nea Makri, 37 km from Athens, a 19-year-old pregnant woman and her child died, as the ambulance arrived 5 hours late. A young woman 8 months pregnant had “internal bleeding”. Some ΕΚΑΒ representatives blamed her relatives for failing to provide an accurate description of the incident, causing the ER call center to misjudge the situation as not urgent.

On Sunday, a 63-year-old woman died in the back of a farm pickup truck on her way to the hospital.islands of Kosas there was no ambulance to take her there. The only ambulance on duty was busy with another medical case.

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