The creation of two-person emergency teams in the Emergency Medical Service has proved its worth. The EMS's six years of experience to date have shown that by creating such teams, the Service can increase the number of teams on duty on a daily basis and even open new team points to bring teams closer to the population and help patients in life-critical situations more quickly.
The development of two-person emergency teams would also be unthinkable without the purchase of suitable new, smaller emergency medical vehicles. That is why the team has been working for several years on the development of a unique emergency medical vehicle, specially designed for the needs of Latvian brigades and adapted for two-person operation. In total, 47 such vehicles have just been purchased with the support of European Union funds and will soon be used by brigade medics on calls throughout Latvia.
All the new cars are also equipped with the latest generation of IT solutions that meet today's safety requirements, making it much easier for the teams to work and get to the scene of a call. The new cars are also lighter and more comfortable for medics. For example, the new defibrillator (resuscitation device) now weighs only 5 kilograms instead of 15. And the lung ventilator, which used to be a heavy and unwieldy device that medics sometimes had to carry two people, is now the size of a hand and weighs just 1.4 kilogrammes.
Not least, with the purchase of these vehicles, the EMS has now almost completely renewed its fleet. On a daily basis, 93% of the vehicles on the line are less than five years old with a mileage of less than 300 thousand kilometers. The purchase of the new type of vehicles is an important step in the development of the overall fleet, providing for more efficient day-to-day management and also for emergency preparedness.
