As the festive season draws closer, government has rolled out major campaigns to reduce road fatalities due to to collisions, which result in increased demand for healthcare in an already outstretched sector.
IOL reported on Monday that Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has called for a united effort from all road users, law enforcement and stakeholders to curb fatalities during the holiday season.
Creecy officially launched the 2024 Festive Season Road Safety Campaign under the theme “Every day without a Road Death – South Africa 2024” on Sunday.
On the other hand, Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi said while focus, at the end of the holiday period will be mainly on the fatalities, there is the untold story of many people who will be lying in hospitals, some nursing permanent injuries.
“Every year, after the festive season, the minister of transport is going to call a press conference and mention fatalities on the road, whether they have gone down or high. Fatalities are the people deceased as a matter of motor vehicle accidents which is a very painful thing because this is mostly sudden death,” Motsoaledi said in an interview with broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.
“But what is never mentioned is what is happening in the healthcare system, how many people are lying in hospital and how many are disabled for life, how many are on wheelchairs because they are paralysed, how many have permanent brain damage but are still alive – those are the things we experience in the healthcare system, that are never given to the public.”
Motsoaledi mentioned the Molemo 'Jub Jub' Maarohanye and Themba Tshabalala’s March 8 2010 vehicle crash where four teenage boys were killed and two others were seriously injured.
“I took the then president to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, to the ICU (intensive care unit) to show those who were now there for six months from the same accident, which nobody ever spoke about. One of them had to be taken care of by no less than four nurses – two nurses at a time. You can imagine what that does to the healthcare system. Motor vehicle accidents are a very big burden to the healthcare system of the country,” said the minister who is also a medical doctor.
IOL