April 3 (SeeNews) - Croatia launched a helicopter emergency medical service - a 62.5 million euro ($67 million) EU-backed project, the government said.
The new service will provide quality, fast and public emergency medical care available to all Croatian residents and tourists regardless of their location, including islands, rural and areas inaccessible by road, the government said in a press release on Monday. The service will operate from four bases, in Osijek, Rijeka, Split and Zagreb.
The project was presented to the public in Rijeka on Tuesday. It was co-financed by 10 million euro from European Union cohesion funds.
Under the project, the government has secured 10,500 hours of flights of helicopters for emergency medical services for seven years, from 2024 to 2030, to be provided by an international consortium, the Primorje-Gorski Kotar county said in a separate press release.
In August, the government signed a contract with the consortium comprising Italian company EliFriulia, Spain's Eliance Helicotper Global Services and Croatia's Eli-Adriatik.
The services will be provided by Airbus H145 in the coastal regions and Airbus EC135 for the continental regions, according to the Croatian institute of emergency medicine.
($ = 0.928 euro)