Ambulance center Antwerp has outgrown a place in a hospital and settles in Boom (Hemiksem)
The Antwerp Ambulance Center for urgent and non-urgent patient transport is to Scheldeweg in Boom. At the larger location, manager Kris Verbeeck (35) wants to grow even further. This month also started with student transport in special education.
Ambulance center Antwerp previously had a site in AZ Rivierenland in Reet, but had outgrown the space there. “When I took over the company in 2013, there were ten paramedics,” says Hemiksemnaar Kris Verbeeck. “There are now more than a hundred with a fleet of fifty cars. The administration, HR department and – the heart of our company – dispatching also grew accordingly. That made us too cramped. The hospital is also in full growth and we will never get over the space we can now have here in Boom.”
The operating area meanwhile also extends far beyond the Antwerp region. “We offer transport from Deinze to Mol, from Essen to Vrekenbeek. In other words, in addition to the province of Antwerp, we also cover parts of East Flanders and Flemish Brabant. And we also want to be present at the go-karting track in Genk and the Zolder circuit for a part of Limburg.”
This makes Antwerp Ambulance Center the second largest ambulance service in Flanders. “The main part consists of non-urgent recumbent patient transport, for which we are on the road with 35 ambulances. In addition, we have five ambulances that drive for the 112 service with cars at AZ Rivierenland in Reet, ZNA Stuivenberg, ZNA Sint-Elisabeth and a car on Linkeroever. Subsequently, we also provide interhospital transport, urgent, medicalized patient transport between hospitals. We also have ten wheelchair accessible buses for the transport of less mobile people. On average, we transport 250 to 300 people a day.”
student transport
Since this month, the Ambulance Center has also started with student transport in special education, through the De Lijn project, so that children no longer have to sit on the bus. “De Lijn has issued tenders for this and we eagerly responded. we certainly do transport for Sint-Jozef in Antwerp.”
Also included in the package are repatriations abroad and the presence at events. “During the full Covid period, we also focused on conducting tests, including at the trade fairs in Antwerp Expo and in the Versuz discotheque. Because we also felt the effect of the corona crisis, especially in the beginning: operations were postponed, there were no events and due to the many working from home, there were far fewer people on the track, which means fewer accidents in any case.”