Community Safety
Whether there are any plans to place safety kiosks in communities known as “red zones”, where emergency medical personnel have been attached; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
Yes, the department is planning to deploy safety kiosks within some of the “red zones”. This shall be done as one of a number of initiatives aimed at establishing “safe zones” within those areas which “safe zones” shall be strategically located to facilitate and support EMS staff when they have to entre such areas.
The plan is to ensure continued service delivery by EMS in a manner that reduce risks and that can be implemented in a sustained way.
As such, the EMS is taking the following proactive steps:
- Operational integration with all safety, security and emergency services:
With the assistance of DOCS and the City of Cape Town, the EMS has commenced by improving its operational relationship with all safety, security and emergency services within the Cape Town metro area.
EMS now has a closer and more responsive real-time relationship with the City of Cape Town’s Traffic, Law Enforcement, Metro Police, as well as individual SAPS police stations and SAPS’ Provincial Joint Operations Centre ProvJoc].
The EMS service is also “plugged in” to the City of Cape Town’s vast network of security cameras. This improved synergy of information and intelligence now informs the safer deployment of ambulances by EMS management.
- Safer routes for ambulances:
Improved operational integration is enabling the continual assessment of routes for efficient and safer deployment of ambulances.
- Improved safety through safety training for EMS crews:
DOCS and all safety, security and emergency agencies are working closely with the EMS to improve ambulances’ safety through specific training and operational guidelines for EMS crews.
- “Safer Pick-Up Points” for ambulances in dangerous areas:
These are being selected by identifying the safest areas in dangerous areas.
These “Safer Pick-up Points” may be SAPS police stations, clinics, shopping centres, petrol stations, schools – any facility which represents the “safest place” in dangerous areas.
EMS management are working closely with all safety, security and emergency agencies to identify these points, based on the latest and best intelligence.
These “Safer Pick-Up Points” may continue to change, depending on the best live information available at the time of ambulances’ deployment.
- Closer working relationships with SAPS “on the ground”:
A closer working relationship with SAPS is essential to improve EMS service delivery, and is ongoing.
A formal pilot is underway in the Khayelitsha Policing Cluster, led by SAPS Cluster Commander.
The close working relationship with SAPS is due to steadily improve in all other areas too, through engagement with SAPS on multiple levels – from the operational level, up to the level of ProvJoints, SAPS’ highest collaborative planning and decision-making body in the Western Cape.
- Secure “Safe Zones”:
These will be specially chosen areas, selected with thorough community engagement.
As with the “Safer Pick-Up Points”, these “Safe Zones” will be selected primarily on the basis that they represent the “safest places” for EMS crews and patients, in dangerous areas.
These “Safe Zones” will be staffed by various personnel, with the appropriate training, capacity and capabilities.
Staff for these “Safe Zones” will be selected and deployed jointly by DOCS and the City of Cape Town – backed up by capable community safety structures and in particular accredited NHW structures.
Safety Kiosks will be deployed where the EMS service determine they are needed to support “Safer Pick-Up Points” or “Safe Zones”.
In the case of both “Safer Pick-Up Points” and “Safe Zones”, the deployment of Safety Kiosks will form part of a comprehensive, integrated safety plan that meet EMS safety standards.
Once Safety Kiosks have been deployed, EMS management may also consider these sites as “Safer Pick-up Points” – among their other “Safer Pick-Up Points” within these communities.
In every instance, final decision-making about where ambulances are deployed, and the locations of “Safer Pick-Up Points”, will reside with the EMS management – based on EMS’s ongoing operational assessments supported by all other Safety partners. These engagements are being institutionalized.
