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POLITICIANS TAKE OVER AS PARAMEDICS DOWN TOOLS

04/02/2021 10:04:00 BY STANLEY KHUMALO

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MANZINI – Some politicians claim to have been working as paramedics yesterday as they transported the sick to hospitals.

This happened as personnel from the emergency medical services (EMS), under the Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR) Department in the Ministry of Health, were on an industrial action following grievances over the conditions in which they found themselves under.

The key demands that forced paramedics to forsake their workstations and converge at the Mbabane Golf Course include that they want government to pay them their overtime allowance, which they are owed; the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) and that one of that senior officials ceases insulting and victimising workers.

Internship

Also, they want the Ministry of Health to give employment opportunities to paramedics who have been serving internship for more than a year and that the ministry stops what they perceive as the unlawful and illegal transfers of paramedics.

While advancing their demands and withholding their human resource, patients seeking to be either transferred from clinics to hospitals or those who ought to be transported from medical facilities to specialised hospitals were left without transport.

This coerced some Members of Parliament (MPs) to render their personal vehicles to transport their constituents. One of these MPs was Siphofaneni Constituency MP Mduduzi Simelane.

Simelane claimed that he assigned two of his vehicles to transport four sickly people to hospital. He said this was a norm despite that there was an EMS station within Siphofaneni.

Ambulance

“Two of my cars left to transport four people to hospital as there is no ambulance available here. The strike found that we were already struggling as there is no available ambulance,” Simelane said.

The legislator further said the lack of emergency vehicles in his constituency was so serious such that he resorted to procure PPE for his staff to use when ferrying the sick to the public hospitals.

Another legislator who said transporting the sick was normal such that the industrial action taken by paramedics was hard to notice, was Dvokodvweni MP Mduduzi Magagula.

He said the lack of transportation for the sick was so common such that it had become second nature for constituents to simply call legislators instead of the toll-free number 977.

“Paramedics have been without ambulances for quite some time and we’ve been using our vehicles daily as ambulances,” Magagula said.

The MP said this was a threat to their health as they did not have the necessary equipment to wear when transporting the sick given that the virus was easily spread.

He said this threat of being exposed to COVID-19 when transporting constituents was something that would last unless government bought ambulances.

“Even if the strike is over, we shall be forced to transport the sick without any PPE because the people look up to us as they voted us into office. So, the only solution is for government to buy ambulances,” he said.

Supporting him was Matsanjeni South MP Bomber Mamba.

He said the public contacted him daily seeking assistance to be transported to hospital.

This, he said, was so frequent that it had become their norm as politicians to transport the sick to hospital.

Response

Meanwhile, last September, to bolster government’s rapid response to the coronavirus, six emergency vehicles (ambulances) were delivered.

The six ambulances were part of a consignment of 11 that were procured by the Ministry of Health through the Central Transport Administration (CTA).

These vehicles were set to bring stability to a challenge that had engulfed the ministry for a number of years as the shortage of ambulances had become synonymous with it.

However, upon delivery to government, the ambulances were taken to South Africa for fittings.

The delivered emergency vehicles included the long nose Toyota Quantum and double cab bakkies that were converted to emergency vehicles.

Information gathered was to the effect that the off road ambulances had been delayed by the partial lockdown in neighbouring South Africa as they were to be converted there.