Union slams ambulance crew shortage
THE NORTHERN Cape Department of Health (DOH) has until today to respond to allegations that a shortage of emergency medical services personnel is both contravening regulations and posing a major potential risk to public safety.
The Hospital Personnel Association of SA (Hospersa) slammed the Northern Cape Department of Health (DOH) on Friday for allegedly operating one-man crew ambulances from 20 emergency medical service (EMS) stations across the Province.
In a statement, the union vowed to intensify its campaign against staff shortages following reports that EMS workers had allegedly been instructed to operate as single-person units when attending to medical emergencies.
According to Hospersa, this saw the union submit a list of the nearly two dozen affected stations to the provincial EMS director, demanding an explanation for these infringements before a seven-day deadline expires today.
“We strongly condemn the practice of one-man ambulance crews in the Northern Cape province,” said Hospersa general secretary Noel Desfontaines.
“The Northern Cape DOH is in contravention of EMS regulations which clearly state that an ambulance must be staffed by a minimum of two emergency care providers.
“Operating with one-man ambulance crews is putting our members under enormous pressure when attending to medical emergencies, which in turn affects the delivery of the service.”
Desfontaines added that union members had given the association a clear mandate to address staff shortages in an effort to improve both their working conditions and quality of service delivered to communities in the Province.
“We will intensify our campaign against the practice of one-man ambulance crews in the Northern Cape and continue putting pressure on the Province’s DOH to adequately address EMS staffing issues,” concluded Desfontaines.
Spokesperson for the DOH, Lebogang Majaha, said that Hospersa had had an opportunity to voice its concerns during consultative sessions with ministerial stakeholders and he expressed the department’s disappointment that the union had raised these issues through the media.
“Therefore, we will continue engaging the provincial leadership of Hospersa towards the implementation of the EMS turnaround plan agreed upon during the last stakeholder consultative session, so as to ensure that they keep their national leadership abreast of the current positive developments.”