“It is another promise by health minister Ana Paula Martins that won’t be fulfilled”. This is the way reports are explaining the headline: “INEM cannot guarantee helicopters 24/ 7 by end of month”.
Ms Martins – whose tenure has been under fire almost since it began in 2024 – intimated earlier this week that concession company Gulf Med WOULD be in a position, finally, to fully honour the contract they signed to run four medical emergency helicopters round-the-clock.
But now, it appears, they won’t. According to several reports today, the full complement of helicopters won’t be operational “for some weeks”.
Today, insisting that delays remain, Público says that Gulf Med, like INEM, has refused to clarify when the four helicopters will actually be operating 24 hours a day.
Gulf Med’s president Simon Camilleri did ‘put the record straight’ in July, stressing that his company was ‘almost completely ready’ to fulfil the terms of the original contract.
Nonetheless, according to INEM this week, its Medical Emergency Helicopter Service is “operating with three helicopters” ie not four “on a 12-hour daytime basis, based in Macedo de Cavaleiros, Évora, and Loulé” with additional support still from the Portuguese Air Force (FAP).
None of this sits well with the fact that Ana Paula Martins will be facing MPs in parliament today, many of which have been calling for her resignation (for poor results) for months.
Source material: SIC Notícias/ Público
