Ambulance crisis not new, but no change

HOW can it be acceptable for a city the size of the Bay to have only 35 functional ambulances on the road? According to national department of health requirements there should be at least one such vehicle for every 10,000 residents – which means the Bay should have 115 ambulances in active service. As shocking as the revelation by health MEC Helen Sauls-August is, the situation is by no means new. We have reported similar figures over a good number of years now, evidence of a deep-rooted problem and a provincial health department incapable of finding solutions.

The SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) launched an inquiry into the Eastern Cape's emergency medical services back in 2015, but little came of the resulting recommendations.

Slow response times remain a big issue in many areas. In our cities frequent attacks on vehicles have led to ambulances waiting for police escorts before entering certain areas. It is a vicious cycle: the ambulance staff at the receiving end of these attacks are often left with post-traumatic stress disorder, meaning they too are no longer out in the field.

Sauls-August said 1,143 ambulances were needed province-wide to bring the Eastern Cape in line with national standards and yet we have only 247 that are operational.

Few things can be worse than being in your greatest hour of need, perhaps with a critically ill baby or a loved one going into cardiac arrest, and then not knowing if an ambulance is even going to arrive. Lives are being lost and the added tragedy is that access to healthcare is supposed to be a constitutionally recognised right.

We support the Treatment Action Campaign in its demand that the health department address the SAHRC recommendations of three years ago.

The province’s operational fleet urgently needs to be boosted; if, as Sauls-August claims, some service providers are dragging their feet in repairing broken ambulances, then these contracts should be re-examined and awarded elsewhere.