On 28 October 2015, from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., a meeting of life-saving services was held at the headquarters of the Municipal Social Welfare Centre in Jelenia Góra in connection with the assistance activities being carried out as part of the “Winter 2015/2016” operation.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Municipal Social Welfare Centre in Jelenia Góra, the police, municipal police, emergency medical services, crisis management services, the Social Dialogue Department of the Jelenia Góra City Office, the Saint Brother Albert Aid Society and the warming centre.

The main purpose of the meeting was to review the assistance activities undertaken by these services during the previous season and to develop a common approach in the event of difficulties.

As every year, police officers, municipal police officers and MOPS employees systematically check places where homeless people may be staying and whose lives and health may be at risk due to low temperatures. The aim of these activities is to provide them with essential information about the dangers associated with falling temperatures, as well as about shelters, night shelters and soup kitchens, and to provide all assistance within the scope of their powers.

Every year during the winter, Jelenia Góra police officers save the lives of homeless people, often intoxicated, who sit in parks, at public transport stops or in other places in the frost during the evening and at night. Most often, these people are so drunk that they are unable to walk on their own. In such cases, depending on the situation, police officers take them to the warming centre, which is open every day from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m., or place them in police custody to sober up.

Such people, most often because of the alcohol they have consumed, do not feel the cold and are at the greatest risk of dying from hypothermia in low temperatures.

The police are asking for information about homeless, lonely and helpless people whose lives are at risk due to low temperatures. “Let us not be indifferent. Let us remember that a human life may depend on our response,” say Jelenia Góra officers.

KMP Jelenia Góra/ii