Heroes of the east need donations to continue saving lives

Pretoria-based non-profit paramedic service, Volunteer Emergency Medical Response Unit (Vemru) continues to save lives.

Vemru offers free emergency response services to local communities and citizens regardless of age, race, gender, religion, medical aid coverage or financial status.

The founder, Casper Visser, said he is a believer that every person deserves emergency help when in need.

“It does not matter if you are a member of a medical fund or not. Even if you live on the street, we will respond to every call, so we plead with sponsors to help us make it possible for everyone to get emergency help.”

Vemru responds to medical emergencies, house calls (check-ups), road accidents, water and fire issues and mental health issues and offers free trauma support for all.

They are often called out by security companies, police and private ambulance services as well as firefighters seeking assistance.

Visser said Vemru does assessment and stabilising of accident, workplace and home medical incident victims.

He said they dispatch ambulance transport when needed.

“Our employees will wait with the patient(s) till an ambulance arrives on the scene, hand over and wait till the patient is transported to hospital.”

Vemru also provides traumatic incident reduction personnel, as well as a chaplain.

Visser said, Vemru responds to an average of 50-80 emergencies a month for free and that unfortunately comes with a heavy fuel bill.

“We are now pleading with communities or businesses to help us fuel our mission of saving lives.”

He pleaded with communities to lend a helping hand so that they could save lives.

“You can help fuel our mission of saving lives, one litre at a time,” he said.

Visser said the best way to help is for people or businesses to donate money to buy fuel.

“But businesses who have fuel accounts can also sponsor a fleet card with a certain amount on it that can only be used for fuel,” he said.

He said he knows that it is always hard for people to believe that donations and sponsors are being used for their correct intended purposes.

“We have a programme where sponsors and donors can make contact with us to schedule a ride-along where they can experience first-hand what type of emergencies we respond to,” Visser said.

He said Vemru consists of skilled volunteers trained to handle emergencies.

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