Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon visited the EU medical evacuation platform Medevac hub in Poland on Tuesday, which acts as an important transit point for the rapid transport of Ukrainian patients to Europe.
The Polish NGO PCPM, which is in charge of the platform, has received financial support from the Flemish Government in the past.
The hub – strategically located near Rzeszow airport in south-eastern Poland, about 90 kilometres from the Ukrainian border – temporarily hosts Ukrainian patients and casualties for nursing care, disease screening, vaccinations and mental health care before transferring them to hospitals in other European countries for further treatment.
"Flanders may not be the biggest donor, but it has been the most flexible," according to Tomasz Lipert of PCPM. "For large donors it often takes longer to decide, but the Flemish money came at a crucial moment. It was important to immediately fill the ‘holes’ in the first weeks of the war."
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"We had immediately decided to give 200,000 euros,” confirmed Jambon during his visit. "Today we see how welcome this was because, of course, everything had to be organised at lightning speed at that time.”
The Medevac centre in Rzeszow is funded by the European Civil Protection Mechanism and is also supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Since the beginning of the war, 1,788 Ukrainians have been evacuated to other European countries via the Civil Protection Mechanism, of which about 40 have been transferred to Belgium.