Attacks on emergency workers are unforgivable

Hot on the heels of reports about Nelson Mandela Bay clinics facing an onslaught of criminal attacks, health workers are once again under attack.

This time, it is the Bay’s emergency medical services (EMS) workers being targeted — not for the first time — by ruthless thugs.

So traumatised are these EMS workers who have become crime statistics while on the job that they will no longer enter hotspot areas without a police escort.

This is after two paramedics were held up at gunpoint and robbed of their belongings outside the Kwazakhele clinic gate on Monday morning.

Details of how a gun was pointed at one paramedic’s head and a woman paramedic was punched in the face emerged at Dora Nginza Hospital’s ambulance station, where EMS workers and Health & Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa) and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) union representatives met on Tuesday.

The six culprits tried to steal the ambulance, but were unable to drive it away. 

Hospersa labour representative Olben Klaasen said the attack would have a direct effect on service delivery in the metro.

“The psychological trauma is horrendous,” he said.

“The paramedic was traumatised to the extent that when people tried to help her, she did not want to be touched and kept screaming.

“That was really heartbreaking to see. That is the effect these criminals have left behind.”

Klaasen said the metro ambulances took up to 900 calls a day.

“The effect of this crew being attacked means that about 300 to 500 of our community members will suffer [a delay] in service delivery.”

It is unthinkable and unforgivable that our emergency workers, men and women who selflessly dedicate their lives to protecting and serving their communities, are exposed to these criminal attacks.

The result if they escape death: physical injuries and psychological trauma that leave scars on individuals and their families.

In addition, as Klaasen has indicated, criminal attacks on emergency workers pose a direct threat to public safety by hindering the timely and effective delivery of essential services.

The safety and wellbeing of those who selflessly serve and protect needs to be prioritised as a matter of urgency or the next attack on our emergency workers could end fatally — for them and/or for those they were trying to help.

HeraldLIVE