The Sunday News
Andile Tshuma, Sunday News Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has appealed to Bulawayo residents to consider using private ambulance companies in the city as its ambulance fleet in the emergency services department is failing to cope with demand.
Speaking during a function to receive equipment donated by Operation Florian, a United Kingdom based fire and ambulance services Organisation, Bulawayo chamber secretary Mrs Sikhangele Zhou said the city’s fire and ambulances department was operating with about five to six ambulances daily on average, yet the city requires a minimum of 20. She said the situation leads to delayed responses as there are never enough vehicles to attend to emergencies.
Council chamber secretary Mrs Sikhangele Zhou
“The ambulance division attended to 1 356 calls from January to November this year. Our fleet remains inadequate with an average of five to six ambulances operational in the whole city on any given day. We encourage those residents who can afford to use the other alternative service providers as the five ambulances cannot timeously cover the whole city.
“The equipment within the ambulance service has continued to improve courtesy of our partners Operation Florian who have brought with them some ambulance equipment which has improved patient care during the pre-hospital care process. The partnership has not only helped to equip the fire services with fire engines, firefighting equipment, safety clothing, ambulance consumables and many other physical donations that the city has received has received since the first consignment in 2012, when we received our first consignment in 2012 when we received our first vehicles,” said Mrs Zhou.
The chamber secretary said besides the shortages in infrastructure, the emergency services department was also facing a critical skills shortage as most of its experienced workforce was trekking to the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. The brain drain situation has hit multiple departments, with the city’s health services department being one of the hardest hit in the municipality.
“We had several trainings that have enabled the fire and ambulance services personnel to compete globally, while at institutional level, this has resulted in a brain drain, as our personnel are sought after, it has conversely put the city on the road map, as having some of the best fire fighters. While we mourn every month that so many have resigned, most of them to the United Arab Emirates, we also take pride that our fire fighters are recognised in such areas,” she said.
Meanwhile, Bulawayo residents have bemoaned the development, saying the average resident in the city cannot afford private ambulances. Bulawayo United Residents Association chairperson, Mr Winos Dube said the shortage of ambulances in the city was catastrophic with recent disease outbreaks.
Mr Winos Dube
“This position of council puts residents in a very difficult position because many will not afford these private ambulances as they are more expensive. However, we want to understand what has happened for the city to have only five or six functional ambulances. What has happened to the rest of the fleet and why are they not on the roads?
“At some point we had 20 ambulances on the road. How did we get where we are now? This is very dangerous and in a possible disaster, how will the city’s emergency services function with just five ambulances. We have had pandemics and disease outbreaks in the city. These few operational ambulances meant that reaction time to distress calls is slowed down, this means that some patients may die before getting help,” he said.
Mr Dube said council has previously blamed residents for poor service delivery, saying council was over relying on residents yet it should be generating most of its revenue from its investments and commercial undertakings.
“While we make a passionate plea to residents and calling them to pay their bills on time to help council deliver quality services on time, we also implore on Bulawayo City Council to look elsewhere for revenues. The city should be generating its greater incomes from revenues from its commercial undertakings and not from the residents. For a long time, the city was generating a lot of revenue from Ingwebu Breweries and the beer gardens scattered across the city. The city has farms which must be generating good revenue for it. Rate payers must not be used as a scape goat for council’s failures,” he said.
