“At any one time‚ about one in eight ambulances is off the road because they are in a workshop‚” the Democratic Alliance’s Gauteng health spokesperson Jack Bloom said on Thursday.

This he extrapolated from answers the province’s health MEC‚ Qedani Mahlangu‚ gave to his questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

Mahlangu revealed that “84 out of 667 emergency ambulances in Gauteng are currently not operational‚ and R88-million has been spent on repairing ambulances involved in accidents in the past three years”‚ said Bloom.

“According to Mahlangu‚ emergency ambulances were involved in 256 major accidents from 2011 to March this year.”

The “number of accidents and cost of repairs is of great concern”‚ Bloom added‚ as‚ “according to international norms‚ Gauteng should have 1200 ambulances to service our population of 12-million people‚ but we only have 787 which includes 120 private ambulances”.

“Better management and training of drivers is needed to ensure that as many ambulances as possible are on the roads to save the lives of emergency patients.”