Northern Cape residents who rely on public health facilities lament the poor response of ambulances to emergencies. Some called on the Department of health to improve their service.
Frustrated residents say the emergency response time is poor. It has since emerged that only three ambulances are in service for the Kimberley population of over 400 000.
Despite the department announcing major overhaul in its services last year, prolonged challenges facing the depratment remain.
In March last year the department’s MEC, Maruping Lekwene, said they invested in 92 new vehicles worth over R50 million since 2019. But residents say they are yet to benefit from the overhaul.
“When you call, you can wait two hours, three hours waiting for the ambulance. But now my aim, we will appreciate it if the ambulance will come immediately when we call, it is my point,” says Mabedi Seleka, a resident.
Residents say ambulance problems are not new, but the service is getting worse and unreliable.
“We cannot assist our patients when they are sick, we have to hire vehicles so that we take them to hospital and after that hospital is full, our local hospital is full. We don’t even get our medication,” says Elizabeth Ditlhatle, another resident.
“People are dying because of the waiting time, it is so long. You understand people are dying, some are stabbed, grannies are sick and they cannot take it. They are dying because the ambulance is taking long and if you phone the ambulance, they ask you so many questions,” adds Nkosinathi Mgijima, a resident.
Budgetary constraints
Authorities say they are working around the clock to come up with solutions while admitting budgetary constraints it faces.
“We’ve been hard at work just to increase our capacity in terms of the human resource and over the festive season of course we’ve been also conducting number of interviews for additional manpower in terms of the emergency personnel. So it’s an area that has also been receiving adequate attention,” says Lebohang Majaha, the Northern Cape health spokesperson.
Majaha also says they have procured 54 emergency vehicles.
“Most importantly also in terms of the fleet, we have procured about 54 ambulances. Currently as I’m talking to you they are in for the converters to make sure that we know the process of procuring ambulances. They have to be converted into ambulances so we are awaiting that process to be concluded.”
Residents want an improved service however, it might be a little while before the situation changes.
Northern Cape residents unhappy with the poor emergency response of ambulances:
