The Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) has formed a task team to rationalise the national emergency number situation for the Fifa World Cup, but this may not be enough.
The department will attempt to make the existing 10111 centres more efficient and effective, as part of its R54 million disaster management project, according to ministry spokesperson Vuyelwa Vika.
This comes after plans to have a single national emergency number, 112, were abandoned with the closing of the R80 million pilot centre.
The Department of Communications has failed to respond to ITWeb queries as to why this centre was closed down and what stopped the establishment of a single national emergency number.
“It was argued that there are more than 1 500 emergency numbers in SA. For the purpose of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, it was confusing to subject visitors to too many numbers on emergency hotlines,” says Vika.
She explains that in a meeting held at the end of April, it was agreed that there would now be three emergency numbers - 10111, 10177 and 112 - published and promoted for the purpose of the World Cup.
Dr Cleeve Robertson, director of the Metro Emergency Medical Services (EMS), says this system will not be good enough because three numbers are still too many, but it's now too late to remedy the situation in time for the event.
“The problem is that those numbers go to many different centres and there is poor cooperation between agencies. Calls get lost because of the poor system.”
Mobile 112
Despite previous plans by the DOC to have 112 established as the sole emergency number, it can now only be used on cellphones for this purpose.
The 112 number will be used by all mobile operators and, according to Vika, if any tourist dials 911, the call will be diverted to 112. “There is commitment from cellphone companies that they will not switch off from the caller until the caller has been assisted,” she adds.
A database of various centres where assistance will be received, will be updated by all service providers, namely, Europa Assistance (MTN, business wing); ER24 (Cell C wing) and Vodacom (Nedcare/SOS associates), says Vika.
She also says more staff members have been employed by all service providers and Telkom is having bilateral talks with other emergency units with regards to the rerouting of calls.
Vika explains that a database for all other emergency numbers will be jointly developed by COGTA and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.
One number
“The Department of Communications is currently in a process of developing a single emergency number but that process will not be ready before the 2010 Fifa World Cup,” says Vika.
Robertson sees this as a problem for the event. “It's not working for us who live here, so why would it work for tourists?”
He adds that, instead of systems being put in place for one month, they should be designed for the use of everyday citizens who need these services on a long-term basis.
“People do not access services because we don't have a simple emergency number system, which through dialling 112 gets you through to a contact centre that can dispatch any emergency service within the shortest possible time.”
Consolidation
Robertson says the staff and centres for all three numbers should be consolidated and used for just a single number.
“The resources are already deployed in the function by the different departments. They just have to pool all these resources to deliver on the system. The savings of taxpayers' money would be huge.”
He adds that it is too late to implement this for the World Cup, but it should be worked on for afterwards.
Poor response
EMS had called for the implementation of a centralised emergency number (112) because responses from the 10111 centres were delayed and not always reliable.
Parliament, the auditor-general and the public have also slammed the centres for being ineffective and rendering SAPS services futile. All commented that, despite using systems which digitally track the response of each police vehicle and record all communication with the caller, the police have continuously failed to improve on service delivery.
In response to a Democratic Alliance parliamentary question last year, the minister of police revealed the nationwide average response time to calls made to these centres is 42 minutes.
Vika now says the department is doing its best to improve this response time.
Related story:
DOC hangs up on 112
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