Criminality during “Protests” prevents Emergency Services from attending to Medical Emergencies in certain areas.

Meditech Emergency Response together with the majority of other emergency medical services is faced with a situation where we are unable to attend to any medical emergencies. This is due to the hostile environment we are finding ourselves in as a result of the protest action taking place in the majority of Durban and its surroundings.

Last night our crews tried to get to a patient who suffered from a medical emergency, however, after trying various different routes we instructed them to stand down for their own safety, as all roads leading to the patients’ location was blocked. During the course of the night, four other medical emergencies could not be attended to due to the location of the patients, and the road leading to them being affected by the protesters.

Patients who required urgent transportation from one hospital to another for further urgent specialist care had to be returned to the hospital they were transported from due to the inability in finding roads that were not affected by protesters leading up to the receiving hospitals. Reports from other services indicate that some ambulances were stoned by protesters who were trying to transport patients to hospitals.

Meditech Emergency Response would like to put a plea out to our community and ask that you stay off the roads today, stay indoors, and STAY SAFE, as you are not guaranteed to get the help you need should you have a medical emergency. Our control room is keeping a close eye on all the roads and routes that are affected, and each emergency call we receive is assessed in order to see whether we will be able to reach the patient safely.

This is a situation out of our control and we can only hope that it will be brought under control soon in order to restore peace and allow emergency services to fulfil their duties to full capacity

KEEP SAFE
Meditech ER