Tshwane ambulances to be repurposed amid provincialisation of ambulance services
Apart from the leased ambulances, the MMC for community safety said the metro owns about 50 ambulances and most of them will be repurposed in other departments within the metro.
Ambulances belonging to the Tshwane metro will be repurposed and used in various departments and facilities within the district, according to community safety MMC Grandi Theunissen.
This was after the metro announced that their contract to render ambulance services to residents will expire on May 15 and that they will hand the baton back to the Gauteng emergency medical services (EMS).
Speaking to Rekord, Theunissen said the metro was granted a temporary licence to render ambulance services during the national state of disaster to assist with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“In future, the rendering of emergency medical and ambulance services in Tshwane will be carried out by Gauteng EMS together with other private services.
“Tshwane has been the only municipality in Gauteng rendering EMS since the decision to provincialise the service,” he said.
“Most of the ambulances belonging to Tshwane were leased so by the time provincialisation of ambulances begins, we would have started the process of phasing out the ambulances.
“The city owns about 50 ambulances and most of them will be repurposed in other departments within the metro,” Theunissen said.
“The metro is required to provide ambulances on-site at Wonderboom national airport, so some of the ambulances will be deployed there.
“We knew that the contract is close to expiring so at some point we stopped replacing old ambulances as part of the process to phase out the ambulances,” he said.
Theunissen said employees will, however, not lose their jobs as they will be transferred to other departments within the municipalities.
He added that the workers will be given a choice to decline the offer to be transferred across departments and they will be given the choice to either approve or decline.
Residents were, however, concerned about the provincialisation of ambulance services and the arrival time of ambulances to medical scenes.
According to the spokesperson for the MEC of Health, Kwara Kekana, provincialising is about improving efficiencies in the province and providing a seamless service, with a single command and control unhindered by municipal boundaries.
“The full provincialisation of EMS was concluded almost two years ago. It had started in 2012 with the provincialisation of the Tshwane metro concluded almost five years ago. The department has been, and continues, to provide EMS services,” she said.
Tshwane EMS spokesperson Charles Mabaso said the Tshwane metro has a policy that deals with the disposal of assets that is in line with the municipal finance system act.
“The ambulances are getting phased out because they have reached their age and travel limit of about 300 000 kilometres.
He added that planning was still underway to ensure that all ambulances are adequately repurposed within the municipality.
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