Emergency logistics in one of South Africa’s remotest corners appear to be collapsing because of the Northern Cape Legislature’s rampant inefficiency to properly disburse public funding and execute on healthcare responsibilities.
This emerged this morning after a youth activist from Steinkopf in Namaqualand explained how a pedestrian died on the N7 after being knocked over by a speeding vehicle on the busy highway towards the Vioolsdrift Border Post with Namibia.
Although an ambulance was called, it took more than an hour and a half by which time it was too late – not the first time this has happened in the province’s north-western corner.
The activist, whose name is withheld, said they had written to Premier Dr Zamani Saul about last week’s incident, but to no avail.
“We wrote to his office (in Kimberley) but they haven’t replied. They answer telephones and we haven’t had any feedback.”
She said in a sparsely populated province where towns tended be 50 to 100 kilometres apart, Steinkopf – north of Springbok – had to share an ambulance with at least three of its neighbouring towns.
“The national standard determines that there should be an ambulance for every 1000 to 10 000 people. We have about 8 000 people living in Steinkopf. Together with nearby communities, there are more than 10 000 people in our wider community but we don’t have our own ambulance,” the activist said.
She said it was a situation that had been carrying on for year, with no recourse for the local population other than election time, the last time Saul was there, apparently promising to solve the ambulance issue.
This was confirmed by Dr Gustav Bock, speaker of the Nama-Khoi municipality, who explained that ambulance services were the responsibility of legislatures and not municipalities.
He said it was Saul’s vision to have an ambulance for every three wards in Namaqua, meaning there should at least be 13 ambulances for the region’s 39 wards.
Yet Springbok and surrounds have waged a lengthy battle to draw benefit from the province’s budget of R20 billion for health care, spread over a three-year period.
“Health care is hanging by a thin thread (in our province),” he said, and it’s impacting on contingent liabilities to the tune of R222 million.
He said a case had been made for cancer and palliative care patients in Springbok to received better emergency transportation to the provincial capital, situated about 778 kilometres away.
If more specialised treatment is required, patients have to travel even further than Kimberley, to Bloemfontein which is about 937 kilometres from Springbok.
Previously, the Nama-Khoi Municipality fell under the Western Cape, meaning expert healthcare in Cape Town was about 561 kilometres down the N7.
