Nuno Melo and the Air Force chief were interviewed today about their support for the medical emergency.

General João Cartaxo Alves' hearing is scheduled for 4:00 pm, behind closed doors, and that of the Minister of National Defense, Nuno Melo, for 6:30 pm, will be open to the media.

The hearings are the result of two requests submitted by Chega and the PS to urgently hear General João Cartaxo Alves regarding this branch's support in emergency medical helitransport with INEM.

The proposal to hear the Minister of National Defense, Nuno Melo, came from centrist MP João Almeida, already in full debate in the parliamentary committee last week, after the MP criticized the PS for having presented a request with accusations directed at the also president of the CDS-PP without wanting to hear him.

Recently, the Government turned to the Air Force to guarantee emergency transport, a temporary solution given the impossibility of the company (Gulf Med) to which the service was awarded to start the operation on July 1, as stipulated in the contract signed with INEM.

This contract was awarded to Gulf Med for approximately €77.5 million for a 24-hour operation of four helicopters until 2030.

Since the 10th, the Air Force has made four aircraft available 24 hours a day for emergency medical transport: two helicopters (a Black Hawk and a Merlin EH-101) and two planes.

One of the constraints highlighted in this Government solution is the fact that Air Force helicopters cannot land on hospital heliports, due to their larger size than INEM helicopters.

Nuno Melo stated on the 9th that the problem is not with the helicopters but with the "infrastructures that in time will have to be designed for emergency actions that may well be necessary".

The Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, has already acknowledged that the government could have done better in launching the international public tender, and the president of Gulf Med Aviation Services, Simon Camilleri, blamed the Government and INEM for the delays in the tender.

In the first 15 days of July, medical emergency air resources carried out 29 missions, five of which were with the Portuguese Air Force (FAP) aircraft, according to the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM).

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