Wheelbarrows for injured soldiers

The Hoedspruit military health centre in Limpopo is currently servicing 11 000 people without an ambulance or adequate supplies of medicine or equipment, Beeld reported on Tuesday.

The last of the centre's four ambulances recently broke, and even though air force technicians managed to perform rudimentary repairs on the vehicle, it could only be used in a dire emergency, if driven at 80km/h.

Several recruits injured during training have had to be pushed to the centre in a wheelbarrow.

Due to a total lack of blood pressure measuring devices or ECG machines, no emergency cases are currently being treated at the centre, the daily reported.

Some of the most crucial medicines and equipment ordered in 2009 had still not been delivered.

In January, rain flooded the centre, resulting in a muddy water supply that damaged expensive radiology equipment and led to the subsequent closure of the radiology department. There was also a shortage of sterilised water, needed to mix antibiotics in the centre's pharmacy.

Colonel Louis Kirstein, spokesman for the SA Military Health Service, said in reaction to a long list of questions sent to him by Beeld that he was aware of “specific challenges” at the centre, and that they were receiving attention. – Sapa