South Coast ambulance service in crisis

The DA’s deputy spokesman for Health in KZN said the state ambulance service on the South Coast is in a critical condition.

Durban - The state ambulance service on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast is in a critical condition and there are fears that long delays could jeopardise lives.

“People are hugely worried. While it is quite difficult to state whether a late ambulance has resulted in the death of a patient, rather than the injuries, the very real fear among people is that their relatives will indeed die before an ambulance arrives,” said Dr Rishigen Viranna, a member of the DA caucus in the KZN Legislature, and the DA’s deputy spokesman for Health in KZN.

Relatives of some of the patients who have waited hours for an ambulance even threaten the paramedics when they finally turn up.

“It is all out of sheer frustration at the long delays and the worry,” said a paramedic, adding there had been instances when ambulances broke down on the way to patients.

“Our head of department has done everything he can to address the situation and the issue is sitting at provincial level. We are all waiting for something to be done, but we have been told there is no money.”

When people ring the call centre for an ambulance, “we had been instructed not to tell them how long it would take to get to them. We have to say we will send an ambulance as soon as one becomes available”.

“When they call three hours later, they are agitated and want to know how long the ambulance will be,” said the paramedic. “The callers want to know how we can be so casual about it.”

Viranna has asked the KZN Health MEC, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, for urgent intervention to prevent the crucial service deteriorating further - but six weeks after writing a letter to Dhlomo, Viranna has had no response. Viranna, whose constituency is in the South Coast region of Ugu, recently carried out an oversight visit to the Ugu Emergency Medical Rescue Services (EMRS) main base in Port Shepstone - and was appalled.

His visit - co-ordinated by the provincial Department of Health - followed complaints from the public about ambulances turning up late when called out.

The EMRS unit, which also had bases in Umzinto, Harding and Umzumbe, and covered four municipalities, was operating in a “crisis management mode”, Viranna said.

The region might have the required 30 ambulances - but only seven were in service at all times. “Of the 30, 22 are unserviceable and not on the road due to constant breakdowns,” he said.

And 23 of the 30 were well beyond the KZN Department of Health’s replacement policy of 200 000km, with some approaching 450 000km. Apart from Port Shepstone, Port Edward and Scottburgh, the rest of the area the EMRS paramedics served was in a rural area with gravel roads.

“These are vital staff vacancies,” said Viranna, adding that the department needed to fill these posts “without delay”.

He compiled a report on his findings and sent it to the MEC, via his head of department, Dr Sifiso Mtshali, on September 16, calling on the MEC “to act” and visit to the Umzinto base.

“But I still have not received a response or even an acknowledgement of the report.”

He said this “emphasised the lack of care by the department, which is not even interested in acknowledging a problem and aren’t interested in finding a solution”.

The Daily News sent a list of questions to the department, but they failed to respond by the time of going to press.

Daily News