The Delfi reader, who reported on this situation, wondered if hiring carriers was a separate thing, though migrants fit in and the police car that still accompanies them to the hospital is not wasting public money?
Kristina Baradinskienė, a representative of the Rukla Refugee Reception Center, said when asked about the transportation of migrants, that the center must ensure the provision of primary, secondary and tertiary level emergency medical services for foreign migrants.
“Therefore, if necessary, migrants go to medical institutions with the institution’s transport or shuttle service. An employee of the institution accompanies them.
The functions of the police are to organize the escort of an alien from their accommodation to a health care facility and to provide protection while medical care is provided. “It is not the function of the police to transport migrants to medical institutions,” she said.
When asked how much it would cost to organize such a shipment, Delfi did not receive an answer. However, in theory, this amount should be over € 1,000 per month. On the most popular platform offering transportation services, you would have to pay a little more than 50 euros for a trip from Rukla to Kaunas clinics and back.
Outraged by this spending, the Delphi reader mentioned that there are more than two such trips every day, sometimes dozens. In addition, a taxi is invited, which is more expensive than the transport service, he mentioned the case when he had to pay 200 euros for the transportation to and from Kaunas clinics.
Rukla Refugee Reception Center
© DELFI / Nerijus Povilaitis
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In addition, migrants themselves often do not want to be transported in a police car and cannot be forced to do so.
Ramūnas Matonis, a representative of the police department, asked why the officers would not be able to transport the migrants themselves if they were still accompanying them.
“If he is arrested, there is a fight, or something like that, then he has a certain status, like a suspect. Once he has the status, the police can transport him with his car because we can detain him temporarily.
And if he needs some help, we can’t take him in a police car, we don’t have that shuttle service. The center has purchased a shuttle service, but at the discretion of the operations manager, we must accompany them and not leave them unattended. Therefore, when they need help, they call the carrier and we accompany them, ”R. Matonis explained.
Such a situation, where additional migrants have to hire transporters, is only in the center of Rukla, for which the Ministry of Social Security and Labor is responsible.
All other migrant accommodation centers are administered by the State Border Guard Service, whose representative Giedrius Mišutis said that border guards solve the issues of taking migrants to and from medical institutions themselves, therefore there is no need to hire additional transporters.
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