Angry and anxious residents say that only one ambulance is working in the Sundays River Valley Municipality in the Eastern Cape, with the Health Department confirming that four are being repaired “and one is too costly to repair”, putting 50 000 lives at risk, writes Thamsanqa Mbovane for GroundUp.
One resident, Ndumiso Maloni, believes his brother might still be alive if the municipality’s single operational ambulance had not taken four hours to arrive.
Maloni said he’d hurried to his brother’s house in the Moses Mabida township in Kirkwood after receiving a message on 12 September from his sister that their sibling was ill.
Neighbours and family had already called for an ambulance at 6am, but had been referred by the emergency call centre to a clinic which only opened at 8am. Maloni said he tried to get help from the Sundays River Valley Hospital and left his number. At 10am the emergency call centre phoned him and said his brother must be taken to a clinic.
“At about midday we received a call from the call centre again, saying the ambulance was now available. But my brother had already died,” he said.
Mzimkhulu Magugu, also from Moses Mabida township, said: “We have eight wards in this municipality and it’s an open secret that we only have one operating ambulance. The lives of many people are very much at stake here.”
PR councillor Karen Smith (DA), said: “One ambulance is simply not good enough; we need at least six ambulances. This is life or death. People are using private vehicles and public transport to go to and from hospital.”
PR councillor Minette Bosman (DA) said this month she had been at an accident scene in Kirkwood but the single working ambulance was in Addo. “We had to get a private ambulance to come out and assist,” she said.
“We have already seen tragedies narrowly avoided – from mothers in active labour with no ambulance available, to locals being told to wait hours until the night shift. In life-threatening situations like these, minutes can mean the difference between life and death. But people are forced to wait hours.”
Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesperson Siyanda Manana confirmed that only one ambulance was working, but that “in the meantime, the closest available ambulance in other areas is being diverted to respond to emergencies”.
“Operational managers were responding to emergency calls to provide on-scene stabilisation and assessment, and helicopters were being used to move patients from one hospital to another,” he added.
GroundUp article – 50,000 people and only one ambulance
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Patients suffer as Eastern Cape ambulance crisis remains unresolved
‘As much as a third’ of Eastern Cape ambulance fleet in for repairs
Understaffing halves number of Eastern Cape Health ambulances