Hospital Unions Raise Concerns Over Emergency Patient Transfers

The situation in emergency pre-hospital care on Leros and the smaller islands in the area is a matter of immediate public safety and cannot be delayed further.

The reason is a serious incident of emergency transfer of a patient with a hemorrhagic stroke, in which, despite the fact that an ambulance helicopter had already arrived for airlift, the transfer from the hospital to the airstrip was not carried out by an ambulance but by a hospital vehicle, without the prescribed equipment and without a certified rescue crew.

This incident is not isolated. The workers in the health structures of Leros, Patmos, Leipsic and Agathonisi denounce dangerous practices in the management of emergencies, linked to the understaffing of emergency pre-hospital care services and the transfer of responsibilities to personnel without the required training and certification.

We remind you that the two unions of our Hospital had already publicly intervened with a previous Press Release on 01/23/2026, warning of the risks created by the operation of transfers without sufficient staffing and without a clear operational framework of responsibility. The fact that, despite early warning, this particular incident occurred confirms that our warnings were well-founded and ignored.

We expressly state:

The Hospital's ambulance is not an EKAV ambulance.

The hospital staff are not paramedics and do not have pre-hospital emergency care certifications.

It does not operationally fall under 166 nor does it have emergency management competence.

According to current operational protocols, no ambulance movement is considered serviceable without coordination through 166, and bypassing procedures may result in service responsibilities.

At the same time, secondary transport in large urban centres has largely been handed over to private companies, which do business in the area. One only has to visit major hospitals in Athens on an on-call day to see the presence of fleets of private ambulances waiting for patients. This development reflects the political direction of commercialisation of critical health services and reinforces the need to immediately strengthen the public receipt system.

WE REQUIRE CLARIFICATIONS

The Central Coordination Service of EKAV for the Dodecanese region, which receives and manages all calls through the number 166, must give direct and clear explanations.

We demand that it be clarified under the responsibility of which agency or service agent the transfer of the patient from the Hospital to the airport was not carried out, where a helicopter was already waiting to pick her up and transport her to the Rhodes Hospital.

This question is crucial and cannot remain unanswered. When air transport is activated and an aircraft is available, failure to perform ground transport is a matter of serious operational liability and potential patient exposure.

REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY

• full staffing of EKAB with permanent staff and modern means

• sufficient equipment and certified crews

• exclusively public and secure ticketing system

• compliance with legal emergency management procedures

• investigation of the incident and assigning responsibilities

Protecting human life is not a choice — it is an obligation.

Those who knew and did not intervene bear responsibility.

For the Boards of Directors

For the Medical Association (E.I.THE.L.)The President: George Tsoukalas The General Secretary: Marina Gidarakou

For the Union of Employees Leros State HospitalThe President: Dimitris Mountakis The General Secretary: Georgios Tsoukalas

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