New ambulances for province
"The 28 new ambulances that Mokopane received were not nearly enough."
Emergency medical services in Limpopo will soon be able to respond quicker to call-outs as the rollout of 500 brand-new ambulances in the province has started.
During the past month, the Pienaarsrivier Emergency Medical Services received a newly built emergency medical service station as well as seven new ambulances. The Voortrekker Hospital in Mokopane received 28 brand new ambulances and both the Siloam Hospital Emergency Medical Services (Makhado and Musina) and the Nkhensani Hospital Emergency Medical Services (Giyani, Hoedspruit, Tzaneen, Phalaborwa) received 35 ambulances during the past month.
During her 2023/2024 budget speech, Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba, announced that the Limpopo Health Department was re-prioritising its budget and that R500 million would be spent on acquiring 500 new ambulances, which will be delivered in batches. She said during the handover at Mokopane that her department continues to strengthen the emergency medical services to ensure prompt medical care to patients.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) wrote to the South African Human Rights Commission at the end of 2022, requesting an investigation into the access that residents in Limpopo have to medical services due to a severe shortage of ambulances. The party stated that the provincial health department only had 262 ambulances for a population of six million people, though the ratio required is one ambulance per 10 000 people. It said that Limpopo was 348 ambulances short. Of the 262 ambulances the province had, 117 were not in use due to accidents, repairs and maintenance that needed to be done.
The General Household Survey found that Limpopo was the province with the most residents relying on the use of public health care facilities at 85,4%, with only 8,2% of its residents belonging to medical schemes.
In a press release, Marcelle Maritz of the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus), said that the 28 new ambulances that Mokopane received were not nearly enough, but would help to alleviate the serious shortage.
“It is important to continually procure new ambulances and not to wait until there is a huge backlog,” she said. “We would like to see that these ambulances are distributed in a way that considers areas and town’s needs and demand for emergency services, for instance, Vaalwater. The maintenance plans for these new ambulances should also be prioritised and properly implemented,” she said.
