The ambulance crisis in the province has deepened in the past six months as 15 criminal attacks left another three vehicles of the already depleted fleet badly damaged.
Fifteen medics have also been reassigned to office duties due to post traumatic stress disorder and three have been placed on leave for medical reasons.
According to health department documents, this and a delay in the confirmation of appointments for call-centre personnel has also led to staff with medical qualifications performing administrative duties.
The control centre in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro is also being manned by medically qualified personnel as the department did not provide for call-centre staff on its organogram.
As a last resort against a spate of attacks, health MEC Helen Sauls-August told the Eastern Cape legislature that the department was now engaging private security firms to protect medics in hot-spot areas and was investigating the cost of fitting ambulances with panic buttons and dashboard cameras.
The latest attacks bring the number to 30 for the past 18 months.
Sauls-August said in response to a question in the legislature that there had been 30 attacks on ambulances in the province between 2017 and 2018.
She said in 2018 there had been 11 in the Amathole and Buffalo City districts and four in Nelson Mandela Bay.
During these attacks ambulances were petrol-bombed, dented and windows were broken.
Sauls-August said she had implemented a number of measures to protect ambulance personnel, including getting armed police escorts for vehicles and engaging with community leaders.
She said there had been no arrests for any of the attacks.
DA spokesperson on safety and security Bobby Stevenson said ambulance personnel were now being doubly traumatised by having to deal with patients in life-threatening situations as well as experiencing the fear of coming under attack.
“The province needs to drastically improve its strategy to protect ambulance personnel.
“In the Western Cape, panic buttons are linked to dispatch offices. In hot-spot areas, protected spots have been identified as pick-up points.
“Anti-smash coverings should be placed over windows and wide-angled front and back cameras need to be placed on vehicles in areas where attacks are taking place,” he said.
“It is unbelievable that no arrests have been made.”
Despite national department of health requirements dictating that the metro is supposed to have 115 operational ambulances, Nelson Mandela Bay has only 43 ambulances, of which 35 are operational.
The deputy chairman of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in the province, Thembisile Nogampule, said it would discuss a way forward for the ambulance service at a public meeting on August 14.
He said since 2015 the focus of the TAC was on the plight of rural patients needing ambulances. In urban areas the shortage was just as acute.
“Here there is also a shortage of vehicles and they take a long time to arrive.”
Nogampule said areas such as Greenbushes and Rocklands were suffering in particular.
Ntsiki Mpulo, from Section 27, said it had sent a letter to Sauls-August earlier this year to address the ambulance crisis, but had not received feedback.