Additional resources improve response time
If you are a resident of Ekurhuleni in need of an ambulance, you will be responded to within 15 minutes of making your call - this is the claim recently made by the Ekurhuleni Disaster and Emergency Management Services.
This can be attributed to the doubling of the average number of emergency response vehicles on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from 30 to 65 since August last year.
Now 12 more ambulances will be added to Ekurhuleni’s Disaster and Emergency Management Services fleet and a new disaster bus.
To ensure that these material resources are matched by human resources, the city has also appointed 176 new fire fighter and emergency care practitioners who were officially dispatched to their posts by mayor Mondli Gungubele this morning.
Gungubele also announced that the city will soon be opening the Zonkizizwe and Comercia (Tembisa) Fire Stations which will be staffed with 56 emergency care practitioners each, from the new appointees.
Capacity will be boosted at the Palm Ridge, Wadeville, Tsakane, Bedfordview and Nigel Fire Stations which will also be allocated some of the new recruits.
According to the mayor, the number of emergency calls responded to within five minutes of dispatching an ambulance increased from 0% to 9.43% in the last six months. Calls responded to within 15 minutes increased from 78% to 80% while the remainder of all calls are attended to within less than an hour.
“The number of ambulances on the road 24/7 will now be increased to an average of 74 which means these response times will be reduced even further,” said Gungubele.
“We are also closing the gap in terms of manning levels at our fire stations, and the Fire and Rescue Crew on any shift is going to increase to four members while the standard is five.”
A total of 170 of the new permanent staff members were appointed from the city’s 400-strong Fire Brigade Reserve Force, an entry into the field of emergency care for unemployed Fire Fighter 2 or Basic Ambulance course graduates.
