Cape Town - Communities in Red Zones and areas affected by high levels of crime face further delays in accessing Emergency Medical Services (EMS) with police escorts during an expected spike in trauma incidents and crime over the holiday season.
Provincial Health and Wellness Department spokesperson Mark van der Heever said the province’s hospitals and 24-hour Community Health Centres (CHC) were geared-up for an increase in expected trauma cases.
EMS personnel are required to be escorted by police through high-risk areas due to the frequent attacks on EMS personnel and their vehicles.
Red Zone areas change, but current permanent Red Zones are Chicago in Paarl, Beacon Valley, Tafelsig in Mitchells Plain, and Hanover Park.
“As crews cannot go into Red Zones without an SAPS escort, the response times are impacted when an SAPS escort is not immediately available,” Van der Heever said.
From midnight on Friday morning to 10am on Wednesday, 4 799 trauma cases presented to 41 emergency centres (ECs) across the province linked to the Hospital Emergency Centre Triage and Information System (Hectis).
Van der Heever said not all ECs were linked to the Hectis.
These cases included 1 174 stabbings, 1 099 blunt assaults, 225 motor-vehicle related injuries and 183 pedestrian related injuries, 67 gunshot wounds, and 1 127 accidental injuries and 113 self-harm injuries.
Most of the cases were seen within the Cape metro at facilities such as Delft CHC (228), Kraaifontein CHC (227), Worcester Hospital (226), Paarl Hospital (217), Khayelitsha Hospital (210), Mitchells Plain Hospital (168), Gugulethu CHC (207), and Elsies River CHC (193).
“In addition to these trauma cases, we also treated another 11 148 patients coming for non-trauma related health care at our ECs, bringing the total number of patients seen at our ECs to 16 636,” Van der Heever said.
It was a great struggle for Nyanga resident Thobeka Daina Rubushe, 27, to get an ambulance when labour pains set in. On November 19, Rubushe called Netcare 911 and an ambulance was soon dispatched.
After a few minutes, she received a call from the service to say that the ambulance had arrived at the Nyanga police station at around 2pm, but was waiting for a police escort to get to her.
“The pains were too much and I was panicking so I took my hospital bag and the local mini taxis and I went to the police station where I found two paramedics parked there. I got in and they took me to hospital.”
Rubushe lodged a complaint with the service provider as there were a number of police vans parked outside.
Western Cape Community Policing Forum (CPF) board provincial chairperson, Fransina Lukas said: “Ambulances services are generally in demand at this time of the year and even in areas where police escort are not needed, the waiting period for an ambulance can be long.”
Where police escorts are needed, there are service delays due to the police’s resource restrictions, said Lukas.
Hanover Park CPF member, Yaseen Johaar said he has witnessed people waiting from 2-6 hours for EMS. Johaar said sometimes police did not have the capacity to escort EMS.