Woman chokes on lollipop but no ambulance available

Yesterday morning (6 October) a government ambulance took more than an hour and a half to attend to an incident in Florida of which the consequences could have been fatal.

When Kayla Karstens’ mentally handicapped sister-in-law choked on a lollipop, she immediately, at 10.55am, called the 10177 emergency number requesting assistance. Karstens explained that the family is not on a medical aid. They could not afford a private ambulance service and therefore had to rely on the government service.

“We tried to push out the lollipop by hitting her back, but when we shoved our fingers down her throat, we noticed that she started bleeding. Fortunately for us it managed to go down. She was still not breathing normally and something was coming out her nose, so I called the ambulance again – only for them to tell me that all their ambulances had been dispatched and it would take very long for someone to come,” said Karstens. The ambulance finally arrived at 12.35pm. Fortunately by that time Karsten’s sister-in-law was out of harm’s way.

ER24 spokesperson Russel Meiring explained how the various emergency services operate and interact. He said either a member of the public will call them to an emergency scene, or if another service is out of ambulances they might ask ER24’s assistance and visa versa. Should they get to a scene where the patient can not afford their service, they will call for a government ambulance. But, said Meiring ethics are paramount and it is “life over money”. If a government ambulance does not come and it is a life-and-death situation, they will attend to the patients and transport them to a suitable facility.

Robert Mulaudzi, spokesperson for Johannesburg Emergency Management Services said they run the ambulance service on behalf of the province, although they do try and supplement the service by procuring their own ambulances. When asked whether there is a shortage of ambulances, he referred the Record to the spokesperson for the Gauteng Department of Health, Steve Mabona. Mabona said there is no shortage of ambulances and that they add new ones every financial year. He said he would supply the Record with a breakdown of how many ambulances the province owns.

In September Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, expressed concern though. In a press statement he said, “Officially recorded emergency ambulance response times in Gauteng have plummeted from 77 per cent of all Priority 1 (P1) calls responded to within 15 minutes in urban areas last year, to 54 per cent this year.

“This was revealed in the Gauteng Health Department’s First Quarter Report, which was recently tabled in the Gauteng Legislature and covers the April to June period.

“According to the department a large majority of P1 calls are delayed due to the location of dispatch points in relation to pickup points. Districts such as City of Johannesburg, City of Tshwane and Sedibeng are often affected. The ongoing challenge of both staff and vehicle shortages also impacts negatively on response times.

“But only R199 million (17 per cent) of the R1,2 billion Emergency Medical Services budget for 2016/17 had been spent by the end of June,” said Bloom.

He added that he was “very concerned about the poor ambulance response times in Gauteng and the shortage of working ambulances even though the budget is typically under-spent.

“This leads to tragedies, such as when the ambulance did not arrive to pick up the late Mandoza in Soweto three hours after it had been called.”

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