Story by: Palesa Mofoti
Pictures by: Palesa Mofoti
Premier of the Northern Cape, Dr Zamani Saul, alongside MEC for Health, Maruping Lekwene launched 30 new Emergency Medical Rescue Service vehicles [EMS] in Kimberley on 21 June 2023.
Twenty ambulances (20) and ten (10) patient transport vehicles were bought to reinforce the current EMS fleet and to improve service delivery. The vehicles cost R15 million.
Premier stated that this initiative is to fulfill the government’s commitment to increase access to emergency vehicles. He vowed that “if anybody in the Northern Cape today phones the emergency call center, out of 100 calls, 80 will get emergency vehicles. This is an 80 percent availability of emergency vehicles”.
This is part of 79 ambulances procured and the second leg of the four quarterly launches scheduled for the current financial year. The first 27 vehicles were launched in Calvinia Namakwa in April. “We are trying to increase the availability of our fleet to at least 90% by the end of this year”, Premier stated.
Mittah Farrow, an EMS employee, excitedly remarked that she was happy and thought it would relieve the community and them.
The premiere also introduced the 30 students enrolled for a 12-month EMS qualification, replacing the entry qualification in this profession. Training will take place at Emergency Medical Rescue College in Kimberley.
An emergency worker, Linda Rajah said, “People should only choose this profession if they are passionate about helping people, not only because you want a job or money. This is good for us because we need more people on the road. I am glad that more youngsters are joining this profession”.
In his closing remarks, MEC Lekwene said, “there is a huge outcry about our services. We need to make our people proud. We are working around the clock to fix this”. He thanked all EMS employees for their hard work and welcomed 30 new young EMS students.
Comments are closed.