Nelson Mandela Bay has only 35 of the 115 operational ambulances it is supposed to have according to national department of health requirements.
This shock concession was made by health MEC Helen Sauls-August in a written answer to a question by the DA’s Bobby Stevenson.
Provincial health spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha confirmed that the department also only had money to replace broken and old ambulances and not to expand the fleet.
According to Sauls-August’s reply, the metro has 43 ambulances, of which only 35 are operational.
According to the standards set by the national health department, the metro should have at least one ambulance for every 10,000 residents, which equates to 115 ambulances.
Senior health officials in the metro said while the ambulance service had 15 to 20 ambulances a shift on the roster, it should have about 120.
Despite the shortage, the Bay’s emergency responders respond to 90% of high-priority calls within an hour, according to official statistics, and to 50% of urgent calls within 15 minutes.
The EMS management has highlighted a number of factors affecting response times, including:
Frequent attacks on vehicles mean ambulances are now waiting for police escorts before entering certain areas;
Ambulance staff who were victims of the attacks have post-traumatic stress disorder and now work in the call centre, which means they are no longer operational in the field;
The high number of priority calls such as motor vehicle accidents and gunshot cases (gang violence and robberies) make it even more difficult to achieve response time targets;
The department of public service has limited the number of overtime shifts staff are allowed to work; and
Vehicles are needed for weekly patient transfers to Cape Town.
Sauls-August said 1,143 ambulances were needed province-wide to bring the Eastern Cape in line with national health standards.
The province has only 247 operational ambulances, with a further 200 not fit for use.
Of these, 123 were in for repairs, 46 had been written off and 31 were too old and had been withdrawn from service.
None of the 77 ambulances written off or withdrawn due to age had been replaced yet.
Suppliers also took an abnormally long time to repair and service ambulances, SaulsAugust said.
After hearings in 2015, the SA Human Rights Commission made a number of recommendations to the Eastern Cape health department which included bringing the province up to national standards with regard to the number of available ambulances.
Treatment Action Campaign Eastern Cape chair Mziwethu Faku said the shortage of ambulances and patient transport vehicles in the province had been highlighted in a recent report by the organisation as a cause for great concern. He said the problem affected the poor and those living in rural areas, in particular.
The Treatment Action Campaign demands in the report that the health department addresses the human rights commission’s recommendations made three years ago.
It demands further that at least 722 functional ambulances be placed in service.
It also asks the department to review the planned patient transport programme and address the shortage in emergency medical personnel by filling all vacant posts.
Sicwetsha said new ambulances had been ordered, but they would only replace those that were beyond repair and had been written off or withdrawn from service.
He said rural areas would be prioritised.
The DA’s Jane Cowley called on the MEC to draw up a detailed plan to increase the ambulance fleet.
“The desperate shortage of ambulances in the Eastern Cape is a crisis that is costing lives,” Cowley said.
“I challenge the MEC to spell out clear steps to overcome this disastrous state of affairs. People are dying on your watch, MEC.”