SA has shortage of 2 000 ambulances: Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi

Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says there’s a shortage of nearly 2 000 ambulances countrywide servicing the public health system.

The Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and North West are the most affected provinces with lower number of ambulances available compared to the required ratio. Motsoaledi revealed this in a written reply to a Parliamentary question.

The reply indicates that South Africa’s population of 62 million people, requires more than 6 000 ambulances operating. However, it has around 4 000 ambulances available.

They are allocated on a ratio of one per 10 000 people in the nine provinces. Allocation is based on demand, percentage of the population with medical insurance and distances to hospitals among other things.

“The Department of Health is aware of the shortage of ambulances in the country and we are working closely with provinces to address this issue through several interventions including allocating sufficient budget to enable provinces to procure additional ambulance. Secondly for the provinces to enter into agreements with private emergency medical services on rotational basis in order to complement the government on urgent basis,” says Department of Health spokesperson Foster Mohale.

The Western Cape is operating with 274 ambulances compared to the required number of 743. The provincial Health Department says it doesn’t allocate based on population growth alone, but also consider where they’re mostly needed.

“We are working on expanding the number of ambulances and we would like to increase this number faster but the province’s budget which we received from the National Treasury has not been updated to include the significant population growth recorded by the 2022 census figures,” says Minister for the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness, Mireille Wenger.

The Public Service Accountability Monitor says this shortage of ambulances will be felt when there are big tragedies.

“This state of affairs of course will be most felt in times when there are significant emergencies when the ambulance service is placed under demand. For instance a major event such as a multiple vehicle accident or a significant disease in the form of like we saw during the COVID pandemic when large numbers of the population require support from ambulances,” says Executive Director at Public Service Accountability Monitor, Jay Kruuse.

Motsoaledi says budget and staff availability also play a part in the allocation of ambulances.

Adding that Northern Cape is different, it has excess ambulances because it’s the largest province with a sparsely distributed population and long distances between hospitals.

Source: eNCA

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