In June, a 63-year-old woman, a tourist, died on the eastern Aegean island of Kos, put into the back of a pickup truck to be taken to a local medical center after she collapsed while the island’s only ambulance was busy at another emergency.

The union representing Kos’ ambulence service (EKAV) said there were serious shortages of ambulances on the islands, many of them so famous they score among the world’s best and lure billionaires and celebrities.

Greece relies on island tourism for much of its revenue, which soared in 2023 with record numbers, and if you’ve gotten ill or injured on one of them – even some of the bigger and more popular ones like Santorini – you could wait a long time for an ambulance to arrive.

Even in Athens, those who can afford it buy insurance that provides for a private ambulance so they don’t become pensioners while waiting for a public ambulance to arrive because of the state of the service.

An ambulance can cost as little as $125,000 or as much as $300,000, or about the cost of some supercars that Greece’s rich drive and never have to worry about seeing the horror show of a Greek public hospital waiting room where an ambulance would put them into what looks like a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

EKAV sounded the alarm about serious shortages all over the islands and the added pressure from the summer tourism influx.

After the incident on Kos, the union told Kathimerini there were seven permanent and three temporary emergency medics when it takes 11 people to properly staff an ambulance on a 24-hour basis, the island’s population tripling in the summer.

A couple of days later, a 19-year-old pregnant girl died in the densely-popular Nea Makri in Athens, her relatives complaining she had to wait for hours for an ambulance to arrive. You can fly from London in less time than that.

She was eight months pregnant and feeling unwell and experiencing contractions and the state broadcaster ERT, citing EKAV, said the delay was because she wasn’t considered a priority problem.

When the ambulance didn’t show for 90 minutes, the family called a second time and said it was urgent because she was giving birth. It wasn’t said why they didn’t take her to a hospital instead of waiting.

Some 20 minutes later a mobile medical unit with a doctor was sent from a nearby seaside town but found the poor girl had died waiting for them and you can bet she wasn’t the first one to suffer that fate.

If it’s like that in Athens, what’s it like in remote areas or places with lesser populations and facilities?

Athena Papachristou, 83, said she and her now-late husband grew so tired of waiting for ambulances when they had health problems that she donated one to the local hospital from her life savings – she gets 400 euros a month in benefits.

The act of charity got attention, of course, and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called her in thanks – she was to have said if he came to see her to bring an ambulance too. Gotta love those Yiayia’s sense of humor.

But it was good advice that wasn’t followed up because ambulances save lives and the state health system still is in need of more, as well as staff who are underpaid heroes who work tirelessly transporting the ill, some of whom don’t survive the trip. How’d you like that job? What, no takers?

Papachristou said when her husband was alive he often needed to be taken to a hospital in Patras, Greece’s third-largest city on the western coast “and they couldn’t send us an ambulance. I went through a lot. I used to take a taxi.”

She stipulated it could be used to serve the needs of the town’s hospital only and said all she wanted in return is that if it comes past where she lives on a call just to toot the horn. Maybe it could also sound an alarm that more are needed and the state and people with money to burn could instead send an ambulance.

The administrator of the hospital, Mrs. Filipopoulou thanked her, admiring her act. “Thank you very much, we love you. I hope it will be an example for other fellow citizens,” but it wasn’t of course because there’s been no reports of the rich even sending toilet paper that’s in great demand in public hospitals too.

We’re still waiting for a tax-free shipping oligarch to donate one, or maybe some of the ‘heroes’ who play soccer and basketball or soccer team owners could buy a few too, if only to transport all the wounded hooligans from brawls.

She stipulated it could be used to serve the needs of the town’s hospital only and said all she wanted in return is that if it comes past where she lives on a call just to toot the horn. How about sounding an alarm for the rich to buy some?

To raise the money, ($71,237), Papachristou sold a plot of land, pretty much all that many Greeks living in villages have, but she didn’t give a second thought, perhaps knowing the saying that the earth this day we walk on we will one day be under – a lot faster if you’re waiting for a Greek ambulance.