“At the National Institute of Medical Emergency, every day is a fight to make a difference: to ease the suffering of those who are gravely ill or at immediate risk of death, striving to let Life win. It is not always an easy task, but in every moment, its professionals strive to give their best.

They are on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Every time the phone rings for another emergency, doctors, nurses and ambulance crew head out to help whoever is calling, wherever they may be.

On the street or inside people’s homes, blood and death are not what shocks the most. What hurts more is the anxiety attack of a mother tormented by the first anniversary of her daughter’s death. What unsettles is the cry of a father discovering his son has been shot in the chest. There are expressions of grief that stay with you. And images that are never published, because they are too hard.

And yet, this is a field where life is celebrated. Every day INEM achieves small miracles, winning the race against time and disease, allowing people to keep living, growing, building families, falling in love.”

(from INEM 25 anos, by Augusto Brázio and Rita Garcia, 2006)