It’s up to us to help safeguard essential services workers

Once again, paramedics have been targeted by criminals. Two were robbed at the weekend while treating a patient in an ambulance in Despatch. The attacks on essential services workers, including municipal employees attending to water leaks and electricity problems, social services staff, telecommunications workers and others, are unrelenting and no-one seems willing or able to stop them. The problem is not confined to Nelson Mandela Bay, or the Eastern Cape. It is nationwide.

Expecting the police to accompany all these workers in what are considered risky areas is unrealistic. They are under-resourced and short-staffed and already stretched way too thin.

And even if they were at full strength, it would be impossible to escort every one of these workers each time they have to go to hotspot areas.

In Saturday’s incident, the paramedics were robbed at gunpoint of their cellphones, a wallet and a two-way radio in Khaymnandi township shortly after 1am.

But the robbery has a wider impact than just the loss of personal belongings and equipment.

The two affected paramedics have since taken trauma leave, which also affects the staffing situation at the ambulance service.

When children and your average mom and pop loot trucks that have crashed or overturned while the driver lies injured and criminals cold-heartedly rob, rather than help, accident victims as they lay trapped or dying, when they rob hospital and clinic staff and other essential services workers, you know there are too many among us with no moral compass.

At the end of the day, the community pays the price. There are already too many no-go areas in the Bay and around the country for essential services workers.

If we don’t fight back against the criminals targeting these workers, people will die because there will be no-one to help them. We cannot stand silently by and give the criminals free reign.

Should paramedics refuse to go to certain high-risk areas, as some already do, the sick will have to fend for themselves — and people who might have lived if they’d had timely assistance could die.

Ending these attacks cannot be solved by the police and municipality alone.

Communities must play their part by protecting these workers when they are in their areas and exposing those among them carrying out the attacks.

If they don’t, they will pay the price in lives lost that could have been saved.