More than a dozen motorcycle ambulances that were introduced in Athens some five years ago as a way of getting doctors to emergency situations without being held up in the city’s traffic are not in use at the moment, because the government has failed to renew its contract with the medics.

Sunday’s Kathimerini has learned that of the 20 motorcycles, about half were in use last year and only six during the early part of this year. But their contract with the state-run National First Aid Center (EKAB) ran out at the beginning of the year.

EKAB asked the Health Ministry to pass an amendment renewing the doctors’ contracts, but this had not happened by the beginning of the month, when the government decided to begin Parliament’s summer recess several weeks early.