100 new ambulances for the Emergency Service, and the minister admits: what's missing most is drivers

A hundred white vehicles lined up in a car park, a prime minister, a minister and cameras. The Emergency Medical Service is getting 100 new ambulances, equipped with ECG machines, defibrillators, respiratory support equipment and air conditioning. A nice picture. And then, answering a journalist's question, Health Minister Sašo Klekovski said the sentence worth more than the whole launch: the biggest bottleneck in the Emergency Service is - drivers.

The numbers look like this. The services currently have around 140 active vehicles. Of the new 100, 60 will increase capacity and 40 will replace worn-out ones. That should bring the total to around 200. The ministry is already discussing another 50 vehicles next year. Distribution, Klekovski says, will follow criteria: population, territory, annual call-outs, transports and the condition of existing vehicles. The vehicles will go into service once the teams have been trained on the new equipment.

A national staffing analysis by category - drivers, doctors and nurses - with a forecast of retirements up to 2030, showed where the biggest bottleneck is: the people behind the wheel. The ministry will talk to health facilities and to the Finance Ministry. In other words: we have the vehicles, the money for the people is still being looked for. How many of the 200 vehicles will sit in a garage because there's nobody to drive them?

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski used the launch for a broader tally: 120 vehicles for the Interior Ministry, around a hundred for the Post, 53 for cleaning in the municipalities, and soon 150 electric buses. "Many things were neglected, many things were destroyed, many things were stolen," he said, admitting that "not everything is solved with these 100 vehicles". It's hard to disagree with him on that.

Klekovski also announced reforms: separating the Emergency Service from the Skopje Health Centre as a standalone service, then extending that nationally, national triage standards, a national dispatch centre and the gradual introduction of paramedics. "Citizens don't know the municipal boundaries of health centres," the minister said - and he is right. When someone collapses in the street, they don't care whose ambulance it is, only whether it comes. And for it to come, besides a vehicle, it needs a driver.