With the holiday season on the horizon, concerns are mounting about whether Newcastle and broader KZN have enough ambulances to handle increased demand for emergency care.
This follows KZN Legislature Health Portfolio Committee Chairperson, Dr Imran Keeka, sharing a photograph of three men pushing an ambulance from a medical facility in Newcastle.
Speaking to Newcastillian News, Dr Keeka explained that while it is still to be established which local medical facility the incident unfolded at, there is a serious issue concerning the number of state ambulances servicing both Newcastle and KwaZulu-Natal as a whole.
“We have numerous ambulances that have broken down and are currently being repaired, both in Newcastle and across the province. In fact, I recently spoke to three Newcastle-based paramedics whom I found shopping at a local supermarket with their ambulance parked outside. When questioned on why they were shopping while the ambulance was parked outside, I was told that they had just stopped to get a quick snack, as they were finishing off a long shift that was due to being short-staffed and only having three ambulances to service the whole of Newcastle,” explained Dr Keeka, who would be investigating this further.
It should be noted that in August 2024, Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi responded to a parliamentary question and explained that there was a shortage of nearly 2,000 ambulances countrywide servicing the public health system. The most affected provinces, according to the Health Minister, are KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, North West, and Mpumalanga.
Dr Motsoaledi’s written reply regarding ambulances in the country indicated that South Africa’s population of 62 million people requires more than 6,000 ambulances operating. However, the country currently has around 4,000 ambulances available.
With this in mind, Dr Keeka explained that his portfolio will now be following up on the matter and taking the necessary steps to ensure that people’s lives are not placed at risk due to the shortage of state ambulances. “This matter is on our agenda as I call this situation a crisis,” said Dr Keeka.
As Newcastle and KZN as a whole face a shortage of state ambulances, Dr Keeka explained that his portfolio, as well as the Department of Health, would be embarking on projects focusing on the N2 and N3 corridors, as well as the N11, where scores of collisions occur on a regular basis.
“We will be looking at the statistics of the roads and will be involving all necessary stakeholders such as police, traffic officials, and security personnel to assist in keeping incidents to a minimum. We will also be looking at Madadeni Hospital during this time, as the hospital deals with a lot of trauma and collisions, and we want to ensure they are ready,” noted Dr Keeka.
As he and the Health Department attempt to take proactive steps to address the situation, Dr Keeka explained that the KZN Legislature Health Portfolio Committee is urging all municipalities to ensure their emergency and disaster management teams are at the ready, especially firefighters. “Emergency personnel rely heavily on firefighting teams, as they play an essential role in extracting people from car wreckages,” said Dr Keeka, who added that mortuaries and forensic teams would also be monitored during the coming weeks to ensure they keep up to date with new incidents.
Despite this, the lack of state ambulances has a major impact on private ambulance services and the community.
Magenta Emergency Medical Services Charles Steyn explained that due to a lack of state ambulances, there could be a delay in response time. This, he explained, meant that if a resident was having a heart attack and the State Ambulance was attending to a case in a rural area, the patient having a heart attack would have to wait and this could prove fatal.
Furthermore, he explained that private ambulances often assisted the State services in Newcastle, but it came at hefty cost. “A lot of patients cannot afford a private ambulance service, and at one stage we used to write this off as we understood the challenges people faced and we want to help people. But, by doing so, a private ambulance can lose between R60 000 to R85 000 a month, which could see a private ambulance company closing down,” he stressed.
Therefore, he believed that the government needed to take a proactive approach to this issue as speedily as possible, not only to ensure lives are not lost, but also to ensure that private ambulance services across the country are not overwhelmed by callouts where they lose money and face possible closure.
How do you feel about the ambulance shortage affecting Newcastle and KZN? Share your thoughts in the comments below