With Telkom lines to most Eastern Cape Department of Health facilities being cut due to non-payment of bills, the phone numbers of ambulance bases have temporarily been changed – but only after desperate patients had to beg private emergency services for help.
Department spokesperson MK Ndamase confirmed the lines had been suspended, attributing this to financial constraints about which “the department has always been upfront”.
“We hope our commitment to settle the debt at the beginning of the next financial year (April) will receive a favourable response from the service provider.”
Daily Maverick reports that in October 2023, officials also allowed the licences for software used in the department’s call centre to lapse, taking this facility offline for days.
Desperate
Private ambulance services have reported that people were pleading for help as they couldn’t reach the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) bases in their towns.
Wesley Bester from Bester Emergency Medical Services said they were inundated with phone calls from people begging for assistance after being unable to get through to the state services.
“We tried to get hold of the metro ambulances … but we had some desperate people who pooled their money for a private ambulance because they needed one,” he added.
The DA’s Jane Cowley described the situation as “completely unacceptable”. “Some people have not had access to emergency medical services for six days,” she said.
“It is catastrophic … There should have been much more planning.”
Cowley said payment for the phone bill could have been sourced from some of the budgets that still had funding.
Even when the phones are working, the province’s EMS programme is woefully under-resourced.
Statistics from the Health Department last year showed that it had only 439 ambulances instead of the required 650. Of these, 190 have broken down.
Trauma cases are usually expected to peak during long weekends. Currently, over a typical month, Livingstone Hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay deals with around 326 assault cases, 25 burns, 35 gunshots, 73 car accidents, 250 falls, 91 stab wounds and five cases of domestic violence.
Between Christmas and New Year last year, the hospital dealt with eight serious gunshot cases, 67 assault cases and 38 car accidents.
In April and March last year, Frere Hospital in East London, which has also lost its landlines, dealt with 777 physical assault cases, 377 car accidents and 21 gunshot cases.
The Auditor-General has made several damning findings against the provincial Health Department over the past year, including that it had “significant internal control deficiencies”.
Russell Rensburg from the Rural Health Advocacy Project said it can no longer be business as usual in the Eastern Cape. He said the province cannot afford its 97 hospitals.
“We need a serious engagement on what can be done,” he said. “The system is not affordable.
“We need a better plan. It is not just about ambulances. The province cannot afford the service in its current form.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Unpaid phone bills leave Gauteng hospitals on hold
Eastern Cape Health: R920m in negligence payouts and R4bn in unpaid bills
MTN cuts services to Eastern Cape Health, Afrox threatens to suspend
Telkom cuts services to Gauteng Health offices over non-payment