Emergency Medical Services staff in Cape Town have been attacked 45 times this year.
|||Cape Town - Emergency Medical Services staff have been attacked 45 times this year and, fearing for their lives, now only enter certain areas during the day, or with a police escort at night.
To curb the attacks on paramedics and to raise awareness, the EMS will be embarking on a march through Philippi next Wednesday.
More than 100 paramedics were the victims of attacks this year, with four incidents reported to police this weekend alone.
Despite being under constant threat from criminals who attack ambulances in crime hot spots, either to harm patients being transported to trauma units or to rob emergency services personnel, Cape Town's paramedics are determined to do their jobs and save lives.
Western Cape Ambulance Chief Phumzile Papu said when paramedics were attacked, it caused unnecessary stress, not only to them but to the patients being treated.
"Some attacks happen while patients are in the van. These attacks are demoralising and some paramedics have asked to be relocated to the Eastern Cape because it is safer there. If an attack happens in a shift, other members of the team will hear about it. The others that were not on that shift may feel that it could have been them attacked.
"The impact of the attacks is so great that even an incident that happened in Joburg has an effect on Cape Town," Papu said.
He said there were two types of attacks. "One instance is when the area is a gang warfare zone, but that danger area does not last long depending on the intervention of police. In other areas, we enter during the day but at night, we need a police escort."
He said when patient's lives are not in immediate danger in certain hot spots, ambulances pick them up or drop them off, limiting the time spent in the streets.
"Sometimes gunshot victims are escorted to the nearest hospital by police but there have been incidents where police have just left and we are attacked by gangsters wanting to finish the job," said Papu.
Two paramedics were ambushed while on their way to Paarl East on Saturday. At the same time, two attacks in Harare and Parow were reported.
Paramedic Garth Botha wrote about Saturday's night shift on Facebook: "My partner and I were attacked by eight to 10 knife-wielding men who wanted to get to our patient in our ambulance.
"I think their intention was to kill him. One even hung on to the ambulance for more than 200m. They were like animals...They even broke one of the side windows by stabbing through it... It is very scary to think that going to work now can be the last that my family could see of me."
National crime statistics for April 2015 to March 2016 show that hot spots include Site C in Khayelitsha, Browns Farm in Philippi, New Crossroads in Nyanga, Gugulethu and Manenberg.
gadeeja.abbas@inl.co.za
Cape Argus