A Medical Emergency on an Island

The number is 112

One number covers every emergency, and it is the same number across Europe. Dialling 112 in Greece reaches the police, the fire service and the ambulance service, free of charge, from any telephone. That includes a locked mobile with no local card in it.

The direct line to the ambulance service is 166. It reaches EKAB, the National Centre for Emergency Care. EKAB is the state body that runs emergency medicine outside hospitals and decides where a patient goes.

EKAB transport is free. That covers the ambulance. It also covers an urgent air transfer from an island to a mainland hospital when the condition is life-threatening. Nobody is asked for a card when the ambulance arrives.

EKAB decides where a patient is taken, not the caller. A private clinic on the island may be nearer and better equipped. A case that needs a hospital still goes to the public hospital on duty.

A health centre is not a hospital

This changes how a summer on an island should be planned, and a map does not show it.

Only a small number of Greek islands have a general hospital. Crete, Rhodes, Syros, Corfu, Lesbos, Chios and Samos are among them. Everywhere else has a health centre: a primary-care unit with doctors on duty. An outlying village often has a small regional surgery as well.

A health centre does a great deal. It resuscitates and stabilises a patient. It sets fractures, stitches wounds, gives fluids and drugs, and holds the patient until transport arrives. It does not do major surgery, heart procedures or intensive care.

So a serious emergency on Mykonos, Paros, Antiparos, Folegandros or Patmos always follows the same pattern. The patient is treated where they are, and then moved.

How a serious case leaves an island

There are three ways. EKAB’s coordinating centre chooses one according to the condition, the hour and what is available.

The first is by helicopter. It is the fastest route, and it reaches places with no runway. The Hellenic Air Force flies EKAB’s aircraft. They include 2 aeroplanes and 2 helicopters donated by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. EKAB owns them and the Air Force operates them, with Army Aviation helicopters in support. Two Leonardo AW139 helicopters were added to the fleet. One covers the Dodecanese from Rhodes. The other covers the Ionian and western Greece from Aktio.

The second is by aeroplane. This is used where the island has a runway and the case allows a slightly longer chain of transfers.

The third is by sea. The Cyclades relied on sea ambulances for years, and still do when nothing can fly. A dedicated helicopter service began operating from the old airport at Paros in April 2025. A non-profit foundation runs it and flies two Airbus H135 helicopters. Its first transfers were Paros to Athens and Kimolos to Syros. Syros is the hospital for the Cyclades.

These transfers happen often. EKAB carried out 1,321 aeromedical missions in 2025 and moved 2,166 patients. In 2024 it carried out 1,391 missions and moved 2,184 patients.

What decides whether the aircraft flies

Four things decide it, and none of them can be bought.

The weather comes first. The meltemi is a summer wind. It makes a July afternoon pleasant on a terrace, and it also grounds a helicopter. It blows hardest in the weeks a family is most likely to be there. See what the meltemi is.

Then the light. Not every landing site on every island can be used at night.

Then availability. The fleet is small and the sea is large. On an August evening several islands may be asking at once.

Last, the patient’s condition. A transfer carries its own risk. A patient who is unstable is sometimes safer treated where they are until they can travel.

A family that understands these four things in advance has a much better conversation with the doctor at the health centre than one that expects an aircraft on demand.

Getting home is a different question

Two things are often confused. Different people decide them, and they are paid for differently.

Emergency evacuation is the move from the island to a Greek hospital. EKAB decides it and the state pays for it.

Repatriation is the move from that Greek hospital to a hospital at home. It is a commercial air ambulance flight. A private operator, the treating hospital and an insurer arrange it between them. It happens once the patient is stable enough to fly, not at the moment of the emergency.

An EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) or a UK GHIC (Global Health Insurance Card) covers state treatment in Greece on the same terms as a Greek resident. Neither covers repatriation, and neither covers a private clinic.

That gap is why a travel insurance policy matters. Read its repatriation clause rather than assuming what it says.

What to establish before you travel

1. Find the nearest health centre and the nearest hospital for each island on the itinerary, and know which is which. Your plan depends on that difference.
2. Check the repatriation cover in your policy, and check that it names the countries on the itinerary.
3. Carry an EHIC or GHIC if you hold one, and carry a current list of medicines translated into Greek.
4. Establish who in your party can get a boat at 3am, because that is the fallback when nothing flies.
5. Ask the house manager or the captain where the defibrillator is on the first day, not on a bad one.