'Cops harassing paramedics'

3 June 2010, 09:32
By Graeme Hosken
Crime Reporter

The lives of sick and injured people in Pretoria are put in jeopardy every day, say private ambulance services, by city law enforcement authorities who openly stop them from attending emergencies.

The allegations, most of which are directed at the Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD), come days after a Pretoria policeman allegedly prevented two paramedics from saving the life of his colleague, Warrant Officer Andries Minnaar, when they tried to perform CPR on him.

TMPD spokesman Mel Vosloo said the department would investigate the harassment claim, including officers allegedly drawing their firearms on paramedics, forcing ambulances off the road, preventing paramedics from providing life saving medical treatment and following paramedics to hospitals where they later issue them with fines.

Most of the harassment, the paramedics say, is when law enforcement officers stop their vehicles, apparently because the emergency lights are red and white and not plain red and therefore do not comply with road traffic regulations for emergency response vehicles.

This is despite the lights being fitted by approved dealerships, which also install emergency lights on the Gauteng provincial traffic and Joburg Metro Police Department response vehicles.

The harassment, which has now been taken up by Arrive Alive, has, according to ER24 and Lifemed paramedics, been going on for years.

Lifemed Ambulance Service co-owner, Willie Lightfoot, said: "Nearly two years ago several of our paramedics who were rushing to assist a critically injured motorcyclist were held at gunpoint by Tshwane Metro Police officers, who used their car to force our staff off Zambesi Drive.

"It took two hours of screaming by police, who threatened to arrest our staff, before our paramedics were eventually released," he said.

Lightfoot said other forms of harassment included metro police officers physically removing paramedics, who were treating patients, from a scene; the stopping of ambulances en-route to emergencies; the issuing of fines for ambulances having non-standard emergency lights and paramedics being prevented from transporting patients.

"On one occasion, after our paramedics refused to leave a critically injured car crash victim, a metro police officer followed them to Unitas hospital where they were issued with a R5 000 fine and then threatened with arrest if they did not pay it.

"It is this kind of harassment, which constantly happens, that places people's lives in grave danger," Lightfoot said.

He said they had repeatedly approached the TMPD management for help and had been promised that internal inquiries would be held, but to no avail.

"We have never heard about any of the inquiries outcomes," he said.

Lightfoot said TMPD sources said the harassment was an attempt by the TMPD to control the number of private ambulance services operating in Tshwane.

"We are apparently an annoyance, like tow truck drivers, and there is a clear drive by some metro police officers to stop us working.

"We are meant to be working together, with the metro police conducting scene safety, instead of interfering with us while we try to save lives," Lightfoot said.

ER24 spokesman Werner Vermaak, whose colleague was stopped two weeks ago from attending an accident scene on the N14 and threatened with arrest, said they had been prevented on numerous occasions by the TMPD from assisting people in emergencies.

"The harassment makes saving lives extremely difficult," he said.

Arrive Alive's website manager, advocate Johan Jonck, said they had taken up the complaints with the National Traffic Department, the Road Traffic Management Corporation and TMPD.

Jonck said one of the complaints being addressed was the stopping of an ER24 response vehicle on the N14 and the threats of arrest made against the paramedic, whose vehicle's emergency lights apparently did not comply with regulations.

"What is strange for us is that throughout the country none of the other metro police departments have a problem with ER24 or any of the other ambulance services and their vehicles emergency lights.

"Surely the protection of lives on our roads is more important than the smaller issues around the application of the traffic laws," he said.