The Gauteng health department has bought 20 ambulances specifically to transport pregnant women in need of emergency treatment to hospitals in a bid to reduce the number of women dying in labour.
"An obstetrics ambulance will not be for someone injured in a bar fight," health MEC Hope Papo said yesterday.
He said 120 new ambulances had been bought in total.
In 2012, the number of women bleeding to death after a Caesarian section increased in all provinces except the Free State.
The Free State reduced maternal deaths from 17 in 2011 to two in 2012 by allocating 18 ambulances to transport pregnant women to hospitals.
The obstetrics ambulances are equipped with incubators in case the baby is born on the way to the hospital.
- Papo said the department had cut spending on transporting critically ill patients from R14-million a month to R2-million by procuring four fully equipped intensive care ambulances instead of using private ambulance services and helicopters.
He said that more money was being spent on maintaining hospital equipment.
But a doctor at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital, who did not want to be named, said medical equipment was not being repaired because suppliers were not being paid on time.
Currently, children at the hospital cannot be given an MRI scan, for which they need an anaesthetic, because the anaesthetic machine is out of order.
The doctor said cancer patients waited weeks for a CAT scan, and those who did not require urgent care had to wait for six months because there were only two machines available.
The doctor said that there had been fewer shortages of medicines at the hospital recently.
A doctor at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital said there were constant shortages of medicines "ranging from Panado to high-end antibiotics".
"Patients endure long waiting times for beds, investigations, prescriptions and operations," the doctor revealed.
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