Serbia Hands Out 20 New Ambulances to 15 Municipalities
Minister Zlatibor Loncar handed over 20 vehicles for 15 municipalities at the Palace of Serbia, five of them for Belgrade's Emergency Medical Service. Who got what, and the cost.
Do you live in Medvedja, Ivanjica or Sopot and wonder whether your local health center will get a new ambulance? If it is on the list below, it already has. Zlatibor Loncar, the caretaker health minister, handed over 20 vehicles for 15 municipalities at the Palace of Serbia on Tuesday, October 13.
Who got the new ambulances?
Belgrade gets the most: five vehicles for the city’s Emergency Medical Service. The Grocka health center received two. Everyone else got one each:
- General Hospital Majdanpek
- General Hospital Paracin
- General Hospital Kraljevo
- health centers in Medvedja, Vladicin Han, Veliko Gradiste, Ivanjica, Barajevo, Sopot and Mladenovac
- medical centers in Sabac, Uzice and Smederevo
Dragan Andjelkovic, director of the local health center, took over the vehicle for Medvedja. In a statement, the institution said:
“The purchase of the new ambulance is of great importance for further improving health care and creating better conditions for caring for and transporting patients.”
Medvedja has now received another vehicle, which means this is not its first.
What did the minister say?
Loncar described the vehicles as true mobile hospitals that mean life itself, especially for rural areas. Then he said what, in his words, matters most for people to see:
“What matters is that people see that we want them to have the best conditions and to feel safe when something happens to them, to know they can count on getting adequate crews and the adequate equipment found in these mobile hospitals.”
He added that good equipment and a good crew greatly improve a patient’s chances of being saved and of coming through with as few consequences as possible. He once again urged citizens to go for preventive checkups.
How much does the order cost and what comes next?
This is the second batch of a total of 60 vehicles due by the end of the year. The first was handed over two weeks ago. According to Loncar, the next one is due in less than a week.
A total of 148 ambulances have been contracted for this year and next, through leasing. The value of the entire order is 1,834,042,841.28 dinars including VAT, or about 15.6 million euros at an exchange rate of roughly 117 dinars to the euro. Divided across 148 vehicles, that comes to about 12.4 million dinars (a little over 105,000 euros) per vehicle. That is our own calculation, because the official information from this handover gives no individual price, vehicle make or equipment list.
The minister also announced further investment in health care: renovating several medical facilities, building a new oncology center at Bezanijska Kosa, and continuing the deployment of mobile clinics and mobile pharmacies.
