Health

1. There has been a noticeable drop in registered incidents in Red Zone areas during January – April 2020 in comparison to the stats on file for January – April 2019. When comparing the stats for January – April 2019 with January – April 2020, Tafelsig is the only area that had an increase in incidents. Tafelsig reported 105 more P1 cases.

The bulk of the Red Zone incidents were registered between 11:00 and 16:00 during 2020. In 2019 the incidents were registered between 09:00 and 17:00. This indicates that the peak now begins later during the day.

The breakdown of incident types shows biggest decreases in:

1. 1. Assault - Weapon (Other) – 23% drop
   2. Musculoskeletal Complaint – 22% drop
   3. Assault - Weapon (Gunshot) – 40% drop

A concerning factor is the slight increase seen towards the end of March, with 45% of all permanent Red Zone areas showing an increase of more than 10%.

2. We have experienced a few random stoning incidents over the last weeks, a breaking and entering into one of the rural bases, and the witnessed robbery that involved a civilian and traumatised the crew involved. We have been monitoring the situation and the frequency and intensity of incidents have decreased as with the overall crime rate in general brought on by the lockdown status.

There have been 15 attacks during January – March 2020. There has been an increase in attacks as the total attacks for January – March 2019 was 7.

3. Ensuring a safe work environment for our staff remains our highest priority – regardless of the nominal count of attacks.  Thus, we are continuously engaged in monitoring and mitigating the risk this poses to the continued provision of service delivery.  We can further add that the learning around staff safety has stood us in good stead as we prepare for a very different staff risk in the form of COVID-19.  We are thus always exploring new ways to ensure that our staff are able to return home safely every day.

4. An initial containment policy session is conducted, once that is completed the personnel are referred to the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for formal debriefing.  If the staff prefer individual sessions we arrange that, alternatively, a group trauma debriefing can be arranged. At the moment with social distancing, the formal sessions are done through video calls with the Employee Assistance Programme. 

5. The decrease in our average call rate and the scaling down of non-emergency cases or elective surgery has eased our resource state. However, we have started to quarantine staff members and it is expected that this trend will start to escalate and we will therefore experience staffing challenges. Our volunteer and private EMS partnership planning will have been finalised and the objectives implemented, this should mitigate the risk to a certain extent.