Gauteng residents are subjected to long waiting times for ambulances which places their lives at risk.
This is deeply worrying as access to emergency services is a matter of life or death, hence the Gauteng Department of Health and Wellness is spending a large sum of its budget on this programme.
According to the department’s third quarter report, Emergency Management Services (EMS) achieved a 51.3% response time of under 30 minutes for emergency calls.
There has been no improvement in the ambulance response time. The residents continue to suffer, in several incidents, people have died while waiting for help as ambulances take far too long to respond.
Furthermore, Gauteng residents have expressed their concerns on various legislature platforms regarding the long waiting times for ambulances and that they often do not arrive at the emergency scene. This is one of the significant issues raised during public participation meetings however, Premier Panyaza Lesufi did not mention how ambulance services will be improved during his State of the Province (SOPA).
The DA believes that no resident should suffer because of the incompetent EMS.
We will monitor the progress of the Township Informal Settlement and Hostel Programme to ensure adequate infrastructure for ambulances to reach all our residents in cases of emergency.
The DA has requested that the department provides an expenditure report for the EMS during various committee engagements to determine how this programme spends on its allocated budget. However, this has never happened.
We will be writing to the department to demand the financial records to ensure that our residents benefit from EMS.