Since 2020, the Jewish community of Oporto has been served by volunteers of the United Hatzalah, an independent emergency medical service organization that provides the fastest and free emergency medical first response. The mission is to be present at all community events that bring together a large number of people and also to arrive at the scene of medical emergencies in Oporto as soon as possible and provide the patient medical aid until an ambulance arrives.
The project led by Rabbi Yoel Zekri has volunteers who belong to that community. United Hatzalah of Oporto was established based on the Jewish value of the sanctity of life and is working within Jewish communities around the world. United Hatzalah volunteers come from all walks of life, religious and secular, male and female.
United Hatzalah is an organization of thousands of volunteers around the world who provide an immediate response within minutes of any medical incident for free. In many places, Hatzalah is used by the local Jewish community as an alternative EMS service for the Jewish community.
United Hatzalah also serves an important function of calling off ambulances for those cases when they are summoned but not needed. This frees the limited number of ambulances to respond more rapidly to true emergencies.
