The organizers of the new service reassure: neither ambulances nor doctors will provide these services. Competitions are already underway and some municipalities have selected suppliers who will take patients to treatment facilities.
From July 1 – changes
Reaching a treatment facility and returning home from it is not easy for people living far from big cities. Especially for single people with disabilities.
Such patients are currently provided with a free patient transport service in twenty Lithuanian municipalities. Those who need hemodialysis or transplants, as well as elderly people aged 75 and over with disabilities are transported to and from the hospital.
One of the municipalities providing the service is the Kaišiadori district.
“Those parts where we are strong and lacked preparation at the beginning have cleared up (…) Now everything is going smoothly enough,” said Tomas Vaicekauskas, vice mayor of Kaišiadorių district.
From July, patients will be transported to and from medical institutions throughout Lithuania. The GMP service will take care of that, and the municipalities will only have patients transported to hemodialysis.
“The most logical thing is to make it clear to all chains – both patients and GMP – that hemodialysis patients are transported by the municipalities, and all the rest are transported by the state”, taught T. Vaicekauskas.
The work of the ambulance will not change?
Jolanta Keburienė, the chairwoman of the GMP employees’ trade union, says that the news about the transfer of the patient transport service to the GMP service has caused anxiety in the medical community.
“How will the organization of this service affect our work, workload, number of calls?” Clarity is needed (…) In some places, they even transported food, they were so famous throughout Lithuania, who came up with this idea and operated that express. We are afraid that this will not happen now, because everyone’s understanding of the indications for transportation is different”, said J. Keburienė.
The organizers of the service are reassuring: the ambulance will transport, as now, only those patients who must be accompanied by a doctor. The service will only coordinate the new service – non-specialized transportation.
“The ambulance service is an institution that coordinates activities. This means that it enters into contracts with other carriers or municipalities so that the patient goes to the institution”, said the Deputy Minister of Health Aurim Pečkauskas.
“Ambulances or people will not participate in that process in any way and it will not affect the efficiency and quality of the GMP service,” stressed Nerijus Mikelionis, head of the GMP service. – 90 percent of the non-specialized transportation that will be performed by service providers selected through a public tender.
In some municipalities, the service providers are already clear, while in others tenders are still ongoing.
“We hope that by July 1 we will make it, in any case, the shuttle service will start on that day, the volumes may change a little, in some regions, because one of the unexpected situations is that we do not have service providers, there is no formed market, there was no need. Now, people who want to participate in that system have to think quickly in order to be able to take part in the organized contests”, observed N. Mikelionis.
It will be possible to order the patient transportation service by calling the number 1808. After checking whether the person is entitled to such a service, a vehicle will be allocated and the transportation time will be agreed upon.
