Paramedics and emergency medicine doctors have sent an open letter to the government demanding the cancellation of a tender for the purchase of two new helicopters intended for emergency medical services. Their demands have been almost completely ignored, leading them to conclude that the planned purchase will primarily strengthen the police force, which also reveals another explicit lie by the Prime Minister.
“I find this ignorance on the part of those responsible towards both patients and all of us who work in this system to be most inappropriate […] the whole thing is a bit bizarre,” said emergency medicine specialist Uroš Lampič on the news show 24ur, regarding the decision of the Ministry of the Interior.
The Ministry of the Interior has decided to purchase two Leonardo helicopters. The purchase, including two years of maintenance, will cost taxpayers 31,964,000 euros, including VAT. Airbus Helicopters Deutschland also submitted a bid for the tender, but was rejected due to allegedly inadequate specifications. The German manufacturer had submitted a cheaper bid. However, due to the inadequacy of Leonardo’s helicopters, paramedics and emergency medicine doctors are now demanding that the tender be cancelled.
Let us recall that the first public tender was unsuccessful, so the Ministry of the Interior was forced to cancel it. In May this year, a new tender followed, which was almost identical to the first one. The Ministry of the Interior now claims that this is a repeat of the tender, but this is not true. The public procurement portal clearly shows that this is not a repeat tender. This is an important legal detail, as it was precisely on the basis of the argument that this was a repeat tender that they justified why they did not follow the instructions of the profession the second time around. However, this argument does not hold up either. In the “repeated” tender, they changed the requirements for the colour of the helicopter, reports the media outlet Info360. Changes to the text of the tender or the requirements were possible in any case.
Deliberate disregard for the profession
The Ministry of the Interior deliberately decided to ignore the requirements of the rescue and medical professions and insisted on purchasing the Leonardo helicopters. Why? Part of the answer may lie in public rumours that Uroš Marolt, who is said to be close to the behind-the-scenes centres of power on the left, was involved in the purchase.
The Ministry of the Interior only took into account the “trivial” demands of the profession
Representatives of the profession and decision-makers at the Ministry of the Interior met in May this year. Experts for helicopter consulting presented their requirements and the necessary configuration of helicopters for emergency medical assistance at the meeting. They explained to representatives of the Ministry of the Interior, for example, that the patient’s bed must be positioned in such a way that the patient’s head can be treated during flight. This is currently not possible and will obviously remain so in the future. Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior only took the colour of the helicopter into account.
The following detail also reveals how pointless the purchase is: the Ministry of the Interior specified the EN13718 standard in the tender, which defines the internal configuration of the helicopter, but the helicopter from the Italian manufacturer Leonardo, which was selected in the tender, does not allow for such a configuration at all. Rescue service representatives have therefore concluded that the planned purchase of two helicopters will primarily serve to strengthen the police helicopter fleet, rather than provide emergency medical assistance.
The purchase of an unsuitable helicopter model thus proved yet another statement by the Prime Minister to be false. Namely, Golob had previously said that Slovenia would build a fleet of helicopters that would be used exclusively for emergency medical assistance.
Above all, the question arises as to whether Interior Minister Poklukar will consider resigning this time. The opposition has called on him to step down several times, and two interpellations have already been filed against him.
Ž. K.
