A few days after the contracts of thousands of Covid-19 healthcare workers expired at the end of December, burnt-out paramedics and ambulance service workers in Gqeberha were left to deal with the chaotic ripple effect of battling the pandemic without help. 

Physically and mentally exhausted, workers at the Nelson Mandela Bay Emergency Medical Services (EMS) said the absence of the more than 100 workers deployed to assist them would continue to have a devastating effect and was likely to lead to an increase in deaths...