The Mpumalanga Health Department is confident that it will be able to respond to all medical emergencies this festive season. The department has launched its festive season state of readiness campaign on the N4 route, outside Mbombela.
Health MEC Sasekani Manzini says they are ready to provide health care and emergency services during the festive season despite the acute shortage of ambulances in the province.
Mpumalanga is a gateway to Mozambique and the Kingdom of eSwatini. The province is also a key tourist destination.
With the festive season in full swing, the number of vehicles on the province’s road network is set to increase. While 1 685 fatalities were recorded countrywide over the previous festive period, only 189 of these were reported in Mpumalanga. Law enforcement agencies are preparing to monitor the roads.
The provincial Health Department has launched the festive season Safety Contingency Plan outside Mbombela.
The provincial Health MEC, Sasekani Manzini, says they are ready to respond to emergencies.
“Now is the time we manage our leaves at no point where we will have a shortage in terms of nurses and doctors instead, we need more because especially in terms of our trauma unit we are then planning that during this time we know that on the road we will have a lot of traffic, we are managing that, so we say as the department we are ready in terms of your human resources and also in terms of the vehicles.”
The province has only 168 ambulances, servicing a population of over 4.7 million people. And not all ambulances are in service.
Manzini says a shortage of ambulances will be experienced as they are always on the road.
“An ambulance is always on the road, so the life span in terms of kilometers within a short period of time you must then according to the correct way replace those ambulances, but currently the shortage of some of the ambulances must go for your maintenance, they must go services at a time and it takes longer for us to get ambulances, what we did because previous you found we have on the company that we bought from when taking the ambulances to services we take it to one company.”
Health officials who attended the launch of the festive season safety contingency plan, say they are ready to serve the public.
“We are ready we will be having stand-by in most of the buy’s roads like the N12; N17. Our ambulances will be there. So we have a rapid response time so we can save those people that need us the most.”
“We are more than prepared physically and mentally over and above that we operate in two systems, meaning we have ambulance and response vehicle if an ambulance picks up the patient, a response vehicle will man the point where we send the response vehicle to stabilise the patient, then the ambulance will come and transport.”
Motorists are urged to be cautious on the roads since the main causes of fatalities during this period are speeding, slippery road surfaces, overtaking on barrier lines, fatigue, and poor visibility.
Mpumalanga Health Department launches festive season safety contingency plan
