A teenage girl died after waiting six hours for an ambulance, with her desperate parents being unable to call for help because the Eastern Cape Department of Health’s phone lines had been cut for non-payment.
Janine and Errol Seafield said the ambulance had arrived six hours after their daughter fell ill, but it was too late. Janay van Niekerk (18) who had cerebral palsy, died in her bed in her Gqeberha home.
News24 reports that the Department’s telephone lines had been cut after it failed to pay its Telkom bill, affecting emergency services lines in Nelson Mandela Bay and East London. Services have since been reconnected.
The girl’s emotional parents said they had dialled the ambulance service number multiple times after their daughter suddenly became ill at around 4pm.
Eventually, they enlisted the help of a community leader and relative, Hessaleen Seafield, who called ambulance service centres and emergency numbers multiple times, but there was still no answer.
“The phone rang and rang, and no one picked up. It was so frustrating because it is supposed to be an emergency number,” Seafield said.
She eventually asked for help on a local first responders’ WhatsApp group, and a paramedic managed to log the call on to the system.
However, no one showed up, she said.
The Department said last week that telephone lines at hospitals and emergency medical services had been disconnected due to an unpaid R68.4m bill, and that it was struggling to meet its financial obligations due to dwindling cash reserves.
It added that people who needed an ambulance should call the 112 national emergency number, however, Seafield said she had called 112, and when someone answered, that person had also struggled to contact ambulance centres in Gqeberha.
When the ambulance eventually arrived, it was after 10pm, according to the family, and by then, the girl had already been dead for two hours.
Her mother said Janay, who had cerebral palsy, had complained of a sore throat and suddenly had trouble breathing. Her pulse became weak, and she fell unconscious.
“I asked my mother, a retired nurse, to check on Janay, and she said the pulse was weak, and later, my sister, a staff nurse, also checked, and there was still a weak pulse.
“Where there’s a pulse, there’s life. I am sure that if the ambulance had arrived, they could have saved her.”
The grieving parents have blamed the Department for their daughter’s death, and said they were considering legal action.
On Wednesday, Mkhululi Ndamase, a spokesperson for the Eastern Cape Department of Health, said the Department had been transparent about the disconnected phone lines at the time.
“We had advised the public to call the national emergency number 112 when they needed an ambulance while the lines were disconnected,” he said.
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