Cape Town – Health officials in the Western Cape say attacks on paramedics have led to an increase in the exodus of health-care workers too afraid to work in “violent Cape Town”.
On Tuesday, emergency services bosses briefed the provincial legislature’s standing committee on Community Development on the ongoing attacks on personnel.
MPLs were told that at any given time about 50 paramedics were booked off sick for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on by the attacks and robberies.
From July to December, 35 attacks on paramedics had been recorded.
Officials told the committee as a result, many of their staff members had been moving to the Eastern Cape or asking for transfers to work outside Cape Town.
This despite an agreement with SAPS to escort ambulances into areas that had been categorised as “red-zones” due to previous attack.
These areas included Philippi, Nyanga, New Cross Roads, Gugulethu, Tafelsig in Mitchells Plain, Heideveld, Site C and Mandela Park in Khayelitsha, Kalksteenfontein as well as Hanover Park.
The head of Emergency Medical Services, Dr Shaheem de Vries, said staff members had been advised to use their discretion in dangerous situations.
Pumzile Papu, provincial manager for the EMS division, said, “They are under pressure from families due to the incidents and those who can’t move to the Eastern Cape or get jobs there ask for transfers to places like Knysna and Beaufort West, which leaves Cape Town depleted. People do not want to work in certain areas, even when you ask them to work overtime and you tell them where, they will say ‘no they can’t’.”
MEC for Health Nomafrench Mbombo told the committee it was hard to understand the motives behind attacks on medics and said it had become harder for them to deliver services.
“When we talk about the issue of the safety of EMS officials you have to put a bigger picture to it, it is already unsafe to be in a moving vehicle at any given time and now when you become a health-care professional you essentially become a mini-soldier. All of us here have been health-care workers at one time or another and had never experienced what staff members are going through."
“But we are determined to provide services even if it does not take the 15 minutes required time but takes an extra 20 minutes, we are committed to attending to those in need."
“But it is becoming even harder for our members to operate and in some instances they become an accessory to crimes, like this Sunday in Langa. They arrived to find people who were beating up this fellow and the team was prevented from attending to the patient because his attackers felt he needed to die first."
“The mere fact that you are forced to stand there and watch a person die can be traumatic to anyone."
"It is no wonder we are sitting with as many medics with PTSD.”