afpop, Portugal’s largest association for foreign residents and organisers of the BLiP Expo, is launching a new project alongside the Algarve Bombeiros Federation to supply a defibrillator to each of the 17 firefighters headquarters in the region.
The campaign, named ‘Operation Shock’, will be launched at the BLiP Expo, taking place at the Portimão Arena on October 7-8, and will run until the goal of €20,000 is reached. The machines will then be purchased and supplied to each Bombeiros HQ for installation in one of their red ambulance vehicles.
The yellow INEM ambulances are all fully equipped, but many of the Bombeiros red emergency vehicles are not, which means that an ambulance crew attending an incident in which a patient suffers cardiac arrest often relies only on manual CPR until either an INEM crew arrives or the casualty is rushed to hospital.
By equipping an ambulance in each station, more lives can be saved by the Bombeiros crews.
The launch of the campaign will take place on the Bombeiros stand at BLiP, where ambulance crews will be on hand to give an introduction to CPR to visitors who might wish to learn or update the skill, as well as giving the visitor the opportunity to use a defibrillator on a training dummy.
The campaign launch is scheduled for midday on Saturday, October 7, but the Bombeiros will be at BliP all weekend.
Go along to the afpop stand at BLiP to see the equipment and discuss how you can help afpop and the Bombeiros to reach the target. The sooner the funds are available, the sooner the equipment can be puchased.
HMRC and Portuguese Tax Authority at BLiP
A team from the UK government’s HM Revenue & Customs department will this year be at BLiP to talk to British residents in Portugal about their UK taxation and pension matters.
They will be supported by representatives from the Portuguese Tax Authority who will be available to answer questions relating to Portuguese taxation affairs.
There will be no need to make appointments as they will be at BLiP all weekend at the stand that would normally be manned by the British Vice Consulate.
