Note to Editors: Attached please find a soundbite in English by Madeleine Hicklin MPL here.
• 17 EMS workers suspended for refusing to work beyond their 160-hour contracts.
• Workers allege 20–25 hours of unpaid overtime, with salary deductions of up to R4 000.
• DA calls on MEC Faith Mazibuko to investigate the dispute and alleged unfair disciplinary action.
Seventeen Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel from Selby, Hillbrow, and Mofolo bases are serving a month’s suspension. This action was taken after they refused to work beyond their contracted 160 hours per month, as the Gauteng Department of Health has ceased payment of all overtime.
The dispute centres on a conflict between EMS employees’ contracts, which require them to work 160 hours a month, and the department’s 12-hour shift roster, which often schedules them for additional hours without overtime pay. EMS personnel work a shift system which is four-days-on, four-days-off. However, affected employees have told the Democratic Alliance (DA) that the roster can result in them working an additional 20 to 25 hours a month without being paid for the extra hours. The affected EMS personnel’s salaries have allegedly been deducted by as much as R4 000.00 for the ‘incomplete shifts’ worked, which is solely the overtime they refused to work.
The DA urges Gauteng Health MEC Faith Mazibuko to urgently investigate the dispute and determine whether EMS personnel are being rostered beyond their contracted hours without appropriate remuneration and are being punished for refusing to oblige.
The department has reportedly instructed EMS personnel to work their scheduled hours without overtime pay, threatening those who refuse with dismissal and reporting them to the Health Professions Council of South Africa for engaging in what it calls alleged ‘strike action’.
Three employees facing disciplinary hearings on charges including ‘gross insubordination’ and ‘dereliction of duty’ have approached the DA for assistance. They maintain that they have not abandoned patients or refused to respond to emergencies but have declined to work additional hours without pay.
These allegations raise serious concerns about the potential impact on emergency medical services across Gauteng. EMS personnel provide a critical, life-saving service where delays can have serious consequences. The alleged dispute must be resolved to prevent it from compromising EMS capacity, staff morale, or the delivery of patients’ emergency care.
If the department requires EMS personnel to work extra hours, it must properly record and compensate those hours. Instead of implementing disciplinary action on frontline emergency workers, the department should have corrected its rostering system. The 160-hour contractual limit should not be exceeded because of ineffective scheduling practices.
A DA-led Gauteng Provincial Government would prioritise fair working conditions and effective rostering, so EMS personnel are not expected to work additional hours without compensation. We would also provide EMS with the staff, ambulances and equipment needed to deliver the emergency care Gauteng residents deserve.