Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski ambulance service chief quits in body scandal

The head of the ambulance service in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Szymon Heba, resigned yesterday, following the disclosure of an agreement he signed on behalf of the service with an undertaker. At the time when the agreement was signed in July 2000, Heba was both head of the ambulance service in Ostrowiec and president of the supervisory board of the undertakers' company operated by the local council. Under the agreement, doctors and orderlies working for the ambulance service were obliged to notify the undertaker of any deaths they came across in the course of performing their duties. On several occasions doctors were even forced to drive to the scene of a reported death by hearse, rather than by ambulance. The case is now under investigation by the police and the prosecutor's office. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 8) M.T.