PULS Ambulance license suspended over Patrick Ekeng death

Newsroom 09/05/2016 | 12:31

Private ambulance services provider PULS has had its license suspended for 30 days following a review by the Department for Emergency Situations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The control comes in the wake of the death of Dinamo football player Patrick Ekeng after collapsing on field during a match.

Beside the suspension, the company also received a fine of RON 3,800 and the “extension of the control of the Department of Public Health on other specific aspects notified, connected to its competence,” a press release by the department read.

The control action revealed serious failures such as medicines and medical supplies with outdated terms of validity, defibrillators with low battery levels and ambulances out of order.

According to the report, PULS representatives could not even specify the person responsible for the pre-hospital medical activity at company level, while expired medications were dated back to May 2015.

Though PULS has three types of ambulances, A, B and C, only type A ones (ambulances used for patient transportation) were in service, while the B and C types (used for emergencies) were out of order. Therefore, type A cars were used for emergency also, though incompletely equipped for such situations.