Ambulances, electronic records will be key focus for KZN health department

TimesLIVE

29-07-2025

The KwaZulu-Natal legislature supported the health department's plan to increase daily operational ambulances and improve hospital efficiency with eHealth despite a reduced budget for employee compensation and the recruitment of additional medical personnel.
That came up on Tuesday when health MEC Nomagugu Simelane delivered the department's R56.2bn budget for the 2025/26 financial year at the provincial legislature in Pietermaritzburg.
Last month the premier said he would advertise 20 posts to address the growing unemployment crisis among healthcare professionals after unemployed doctors staged a sit-in outside the KZN premier's office for several days.
The protesters gathered to express frustrations over the delay in advertising doctors' posts in the province despite promises earlier this year by the national government to fill new positions.
The department had no cuts on its baseline allocation, which was instead increased by 2.5%, for the first time in 19 years after losing more than R8bn in its baseline budget in the past six years.
Simelane said this deficit had resulted in the department struggling to meet some healthcare demands, including filling critical posts in nursing, medicine, administrative, and allied health professions as well as hindering some of its infrastructure development including a backlog of 250 clinics and routine maintenance in other facilities.
With the increased allocation, Simelane said, the department's priority was the long-standing issue of ambulance shortages.
'KZN's vast and difficult terrain, coupled with budget limitations, has meant that we have only been able to replace ageing ambulances, not expand our fleet as much as we would have liked to. We have been transparent about this reality,' said Simelane.
She said that has put a strain on the Emergency Medical Services' (EMS) response times when evacuating the sick and injured, as well as transferring patients between facilities.
She said the department is establishing a panel of licensed private EMS providers to complement its existing fleet and reduce response times. The panel will consist of the more than 300 licensed private ambulances that are already operating in the province.
Simelane said they have allocated the R81m EMS budget to fund the procurement of 50 new ambulances and 10 35-seater planned patient transport buses and use part of it for outsourcing EMS services from the private sector
'This is a temporary measure for six months, while we fine-tune our procurement processes.'
The department is further planning to procure a total of 200 vehicles — made up of general fleet, mobile clinics, and EMS response vehicles — this financial year. It will also introduce a roadside assistance programme to reduce turnaround times for minor repairs and maintenance, which will see the appointment of 12 artisan mechanics and the procurement of 11 vehicles to support district-level maintenance.