SIV
Published 8 November 2026, 21:11
SIV — Ambulância de Suporte Imediato de Vida (ambulance with a nurse)
An ambulance crewed by a nurse as well as an emergency technician. It carries everything an ordinary ambulance does, plus a monitor-defibrillator and drugs, and can send the patient's ECG and vital signs to the hospital en route; resuscitation can be carried out on board. The CODU control centre sends it to calls that are more serious than usual, but not to those that the doctor-staffed VMER attends.
Where you come across it. A 112 call: the ambulance arrives and the crew includes a nurse as well as a technician — that is an SIV.
Under an agreement of 11 September 2026 between the union, the Ministry of Health and INEM, 15 of these vehicles are being converted into cars as a pilot project. The car will come and give help on the spot, but a separate ambulance will take the patient to hospital; for every vehicle converted, INEM promises to bring a new ambulance into service.
Official website: inem.pt/2017/06/12/perguntas-frequentes-2