DA: Soweto ambulance infrastructure inadequate

The DA says the ambulance fleet in Jabulani, Soweto needs to be expanded as a matter of urgency. Currenlty an average of five ambulances service an area with a population estimated at 500 000.

DA constituency MP for Soweto West James Lorimer and Jack Bloom MPL visited the area Tuesday morning. They say a shortage of equipment and poor facilities contribute to Gauteng’s ambulance response times being slower than the optimum international norm of 12 minutes between a call and the arrival of an ambulance.

"There are not enough ambulances."

Lorimer says those that there are, are overused, age rapidly and break down more often as they age.

"Each of the average of five ambulances at Jabulani clocks up more than 200 000 km every year."

"Almost every day Jabulani’s one fire tender is dispatched to attend to patients because there are no other vehicles available. The fire tenders carry paramedics to the patents who are stabilised but the tender is required to wait with patients until an ambulance can arrive to ferry them to hospital. The tender is not allowed to abandon the patient, even if there is a fire and the tender is needed. Thus a R3m fire tender sometimes waits idly until an ambulance can be found."

Lorimer says the area served by Jabulani is too big for an effective response. Ambulances are expected to transport patents from up to 30km away. It is physically impossible to arrive at an address that far away, through Soweto traffic, in 12 minutes. This may be the reason the response time for ambulances in Jabulani averages 31 minutes.

The DA says as a matter of urgency, the ambulance fleet needs to be expanded, the new radio system needs to be prioritised and a date be set by when it will be operational and new ambulance stations need to be set up at the furtherest reaches to the area currently served by the Jabulani station.