Paramedics continue to be victimised

Robberies, attacks and hijackings of the City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS) continue to persist in various parts of Johannesburg, Soweto Urban reports.

According to the EMS spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi, they are concerned about a number of incidents were emergency services personnel are attacked while rendering essential services to the residents throughout the City of Johannesburg.

READ MORE: Ambulance attacked while responding to emergency in Honeydew

He said recently, the City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services ambulance crews based at the Northview Fire Station were shot at while attending to an assault case and fortunately, they left the scene unharmed.

😭😭😭Enough is enough!!!STOP attacks on PARAMEDICS pic.twitter.com/o6FF190dFU

— Official_GautengEMS (@GautengEMS) April 4, 2018

He said in another incident, four paramedics based at the Eldorado Park Fire Station were attacked by the community while attending to a female patient who was badly assaulted by her boyfriend in Freedom Park.

“After assessing the patient the paramedics confirmed the patient dead on the scene and angry residents started attacking the boyfriend of the deceased.

“Paramedics were injured while trying to intervene to stop the angry crowd and they sustained minor injuries in the process and were taken to the nearest healthcare facility for further treatment,” said Mulaudzi.

He said on a weekly basis they hear reports where emergency services personnel are attacked off their belongings while rendering a vital service to the community.

Recent attacks were made in Soweto and, according to Mulaudzi, another attack was made in February whereby an ambulance based at the Hunters Hill Fire Station was attacked with the patient on board when a person threw a brick into an oncoming ambulance while attending to an incident in Honeydew informal settlement.

He said both rear doors of the ambulance were completely damaged and the paramedics with the patient survived the incident unharmed.

“We cannot afford situations where we have no-go areas. The community must work together with us to remove these few criminal elements by reporting them to the police because this behaviour not only creates fear and panic to the paramedics, but it also affects our response times to emergencies and also disrupts service delivery to our communities.

“We, therefore, would like to call on our communities to protect us while we do what we do best rendering effective professional emergency services to all the residents of the City of Johannesburg,” said Mulaudzi.

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