An attack on two paramedics crews over the weekend, has the City of Johannesburg concerned about another rise in attacks on Emergency Management Services (EMS) personnel.
EMS spokesperson, Robert Mulaudzi, said on 21 April, paramedics were shot at while attending to an assault case in Sandringham. Luckily they survived the incident unharmed.
The next day, another crew was attacked by community members while they attended to a patient who was allegedly badly assaulted by her partner in Freedom Park.
He explained that the community started attacking the partner and paramedics were injured while trying to intervene.
“On a weekly basis, we hear of incidents where EMS personnel are attacked, hijacked or robbed of their belongings while rendering an essential service to our communities.
We cannot afford situations where we have no-go areas. Communities must work together with us to remove these few criminal elements by reporting them to the police,” he said.
Mulaudzi said this behaviour not only creates fear and panic among paramedics but it also affects their response times to emergencies and disrupts service delivery to communities.
“We 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.”
ALSO READ: Uber calls recent attack ‘distressing’
