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Durban – A Verulam pensioner died of a suspected heart attack at the weekend, apparently after being refused help by staff of the KwaZulu-Natal Emergency Medical Rescue Service (EMRS), a public ambulance service which was on strike, the woman\u2019s family said. <\/p>\n
Relatives of Theelawathie Sukhraj, 69, said she had gone to the bathroom at 5.30pm on Saturday and then complained of feeling hot. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Her nephew, Avidth Ramessar, 33, said on Monday his aunt had fainted and then struggled to breathe. <\/p>\n
Relatives phoned EMRS but were allegedly told the staff were on strike and that an ambulance could not be sent to their home in Katzkop Drive, Mount View, in Verulam. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a life we are talking about and they tell you staff are on a go-slow,\u201d Ramessar said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He said another relative phoned Reaction Unit SA, a security company, and pleaded for help. <\/p>\n
The security company was given the same response by EMRS, its spokesman Prem Balram said. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur controller made a call to 10177; however, EMRS said they were on strike and could not help. The family was informed, but they could not afford a private ambulance.\u201d <\/p>\n
A short while later, the family phoned the security control again to say a doctor had declared Sukhraj dead. Ramessar was devastated, saying his aunt could have been alive if an ambulance had been sent. <\/p>\n
In May, EMRS paramedics, who protested in Durban, warned that the government\u2019s ambulance service would come to a standstill if their demands were not met. Their grievances included a demand for overtime and a danger allowance. <\/p>\n
Health Department spokesman Samuel Mkhwanazi said he needed more time to compile a response on Sukhraj\u2019s death. <\/p>\n
The department would have to listen to tapes of the day of the incident, he said. <\/p>\n
The Mercury <\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reuters File image Durban – A Verulam pensioner died of a suspected heart attack at the weekend, apparently after being refused help by staff of the KwaZulu-Natal Emergency Medical Rescue Service (EMRS), a public ambulance service which was on strike, the woman\u2019s family said. Relatives of Theelawathie Sukhraj, 69, said she had gone to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-21344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}