Hospersa condemns latest ambulance attack
The Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union of South Africa (Hospersa) on Friday condemned this week’s attack on an ambulance crew in the Cape Town area.
“A provincial health ambulance responding to a call in Nyanga, outside Cape Town, was stoned by community members participating in a service delivery protest on Tuesday. The stones injured one of the EMS members and was rushed to hospital for treatment and also damaged the ambulance,” said Western Cape Provincial Chairperson, Michael Serelina.
Hospersa said both members have subsequently been removed from duty and are now receiving trauma counselling.
“The protest action was becoming life threatening to EMS members,He said they question why this happened because the members were not informed timorously to avoid the area,” said Serelina.
He said Nyanga was one of the so-called red zones, where ambulances should not respond to calls without being escorted by the South African Police Service. The intervention was a step in the right direction, but it failed in this case.
“We maintain that the Department of Health, both nationally and provincially, is not doing enough. We wrote an open letter to the MEC in January, and the Federation of Unions of South Africa wrote a similar letter to Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi,” said Serelina.
“We asked for urgent intervention to protect our members when serving the community. We have had a response from the MEC, but not yet from the minister.”