Recent difficulties with Bulgaria’s ambulance service have shown that when people work together, solutions can usually be found.  In this case, not only did they come up with extra ambulances, but also additional doctors from hospitals in Sofia, willing and able to fill vacancies at the Emergency Services Centre.  There’s also likely to be extra cash to cover the modest increase in pay for the Centre’s doctors.  And on top of all that, the Bulgarian Red Cross and its business partners have launched a four-month pilot project providing a crucial safety net for the service as a whole.  Over the months to come, the project’s effectiveness will be monitored to see if it is worthwhile continuing in future.  Hristo Grigorov, President of the Bulgarian Red Cross, explains:

“The project brings on board some of our most important partners;  we have ambulances, motorbikes, helicopters, and we want to trial them all over the next four months. Most importantly we have to sign up taxi drivers because in reality they’re the ones who drive around Sofia most, and they’re among the first to reach the scene of an accident.  We’ve organised a project to start training eighty taxi drivers, mirroring what’s done with paramedics.  But they won’t become paramedics themselves, this will simply give them some extra skills to help them cope and stop them panicking if they see blood.  Then they can radio their own call centre and ring 112, the single European emergency call number, as 112 will be at the centre of what’s going on.  But the most important thing is for them to give first aid, which is vital in keeping the victim alive.  It’s an interesting way of working and in setting it up we’ve drawn on experience from the German Red Cross and from Israel."

“We’re not trying to compete with public services, our job is to provide a solution enabling us to co-operate and be more effective together,” says Grigorov.  He continues:

“One of our partners has already poured hundreds of thousands of levs into buying ambulances and motorbikes.  More than a hundred bikes are fully equipped with everything from defibrillators to ECG machines; whatever you’d find in an ambulance is on the bikes.  Initially the bikes will be there to transport doctors, but later, once paramedics have been trained, they’ll be at the controls, because motorbikes – like taxis – are the quickest means of getting around.  We’ve been working on this together with ENA Emergency Medicine, a private accident and emergency company with its own transport, logistics and IT systems, and Heli Air Services, which provides helicopters.  We’d like to be able to make use of the helicopters.  Heli Air has helicopter pads in Burgas and Varna to cover the whole of the Black Sea Coast, as well as four pads in Sofia.  We’re also partners with the association of taxi drivers and some major hospitals which have signed agreements to treat patients as part of the four-month project.  All in all this is a highly interesting and useful trial.  We’re not attempting to reinvent the wheel, it’s just that public-private partnerships are necessary in today’s world and they’ve been shown to be highly effective.”

Taxi drivers participating in the project will wear special jackets displaying the logo of the Bulgarian Red Cross.  Their taxis will be fitted with upgraded first aid kits with extra resources.  All this will enable drivers to be more pro-active while they wait for the arrival of the emergency services, which play a vital role in preserving human lives.  “With the current dwindling population, and two million people already having left Bulgaria to live abroad, we have to fight to save every single human life,” says Hristo Grigorov, President of the Bulgarian Red Cross.

English:  Christopher Pavis