Looming war between ambulance services

A threatening war between local ambulance services might soon take a turn for the worst as allegations of favouritism and possible malpractice have some emergency personnel up in arms.
A source who chose to remain anonymous said action will soon be taken against certain ambulance services who do not adhere to the code of conduct regulating medical practice in South Africa.
“We are back in the 1970s where an ambulance service will pick up and rush a patient – scoop as we call it – to hospital. Poorly equipped ambulances run the city’s streets picking up patients and transporting them to hospital. It is nowadays all about the money and not about the wellbeing of the patient,” he said.
The source referred to several examples of incidents where patients are scooped on a scene. “During a recent accident a person who had to be extricated from a vehicle was carried away from the wreck by a medical practitioner to an ambulance the moment she was freed. In another accident 13 injured passengers from an overturned taxi were transported to hospital by a certain service in only two ambulances. The injured were not even stabilised to prevent further injury” the source said.
He also referred to the same emergency service company always being first on the scene, allegedly because emergency calls are possibly directed to the specific service first and only several minutes later to other services. It has been noted that some of the better known ambulance services sometimes arrive on a scene when the other has already.
Polokwane Observer has of late also noted on several accident scenes that a certain service tends to arrive first at the scene.
“Those involved are playing with people’s lives. In case of a disaster or major accident, it will still be about the money and not about having enough emergency personnel on the scene to provide medical care.”
The source also mentioned that some of the drivers of the service are not even qualified medics and are only used to drive and to left recruit patients on the scene.
“These services also only respond to accidents as it is easier to recruit a patient that is in pain than to convince a medical patient to make use of the service. They also chase accidents with no concern over other road users and an accident is waiting to happen,” the source said.
Local ambulance services are described as a ticking time bomb with those keeping to the laws of the medical practice no longer going to let others who put patients’ lives at risk get away with murder, according to the source.

Story: RC Myburgh
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