The Democratic Alliance (DA) has reported serious ambulance related complaints to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), as more than half of the Northern Cape’s entire Emergency Medical Services (EMS) fleet is reported to be out of order.
Two weeks ago, a young mother from Rooiwal failed to access an ambulance when going into labour on a Sunday afternoon at 2:30pm. When she gave birth at about 10pm, the baby was already dead. The ambulance arrived after 4am the next day, more than two hours after forensic services arrived to collect the corpse.
This is not an isolated incident. A week ago, a diabetic patient died in transit while en route from Kuruman to Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital (RMSH) after waiting two days for an ambulance. This past Friday, a patient from Ritchie waited more than eight hours for an ambulance to transport him to RMSH, after collapsing.
Despite empty promises to bolster EMS, ambulance and patient transport services have remained in the Intensive Care Unit since 2019 with the latest information showing that EMS is operating at 46% fleet capacity.
The DA has raised our concerns that ambulance procurement is a vehicle replacement strategy and does nothing to strengthen the fleet. We have also repeatedly called for the slow turn-around time for emergency vehicle repairs to be addressed.
Instead of addressing these concerns, the health department lowered its emergency response standards by downgrading its target for operational ambulances from 184 to 130, and its target for EMS personnel from 1 800 to 720 employees. The number of employees stands at 653 as opposed to around 700 in 2019.
This is not good enough when the province endures single crew ambulances, ambulances operating for only 12 hours a day like in the Hantam area, patient transporters having to cancel trips, preventing patients in rural areas from accessing medical care, and ambulances failing to save lives.
The DA has asked the SAHRC to add the latest string of ambulance complaints to the health case file. People deserve access to emergency services that save lives.