A leaked document shows the true disaster of Johannesburg emergency ambulances, with average station response times ranging from 16.5 minutes to 36 minutes, which are much longer than the 12 minutes international standard.
These appalling figures have been kept from public knowledge as they reveal the extent of the mismanagement by Dr Audrey Gule, the head of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS).
The figures that I have are the average response times from January to September last year, and little has changed to improve these times even with the Soccer World Cup.
It takes more than 30 minutes for an ambulance to reach an emergency in the five worst stations, which are Modderfontein (36 min), Ivory Park (35 min), Jabulani (32 min), Lawley (31 min) and Turffontein (30 min).
Only five out of the city's 29 stations have response times better than 20 minutes - the best is Berea (16.5 min), followed by Roodepoort (18 min), Randburg and Fairview (19 min each) and Sandton (19.4 min).
Johannesburg ambulances have gone downhill under Gule, who needs to be held to account for her failure.
The unacceptable response times are due to factors that include:
- Only 25 ambulances out of 64 are usually operational due to breakdowns and accidents
- Only two radio channels are available for the whole of Johannesburg due to stolen or broken transmitters - this means that calls have to queue before they go through
- Many ambulances have broken radios, so portable radios or private cellphones have to be used instead
- Some stations don't answer their phones for long periods
- Ambulance drivers are poorly monitored and abscond at times
- Low morale and high staff turnover
Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu needs to intervene urgently to ensure that Johannesburg has a decent ambulance service.
We are fortunate that private ambulances fill some of the gaps but we must hope that there is no adverse Soccer World Cup event that will test the public ambulance service as it is truly abysmal.
Statement by Jack Bloom, MPL, DA Gauteng Health Spokesman, June 21 2010
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