“Traumatising”: Eastern Cape Family Waits Hours With Dead Relative Amid Ambulance Crisis
- Lionel Sharp, 54, died in KuGompo City after waiting hours for an ambulance that never came
- His grieving family made repeated emergency calls for help as he complained of persistent headaches
- The Eastern Cape Health Department confirmed 161 of its 353 ambulances were currently grounded
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EASTERN CAPE - A family in KuGompo City, Eastern Cape, was left waiting alongside the body of their deceased relative for hours after an ambulance failed to arrive in time to save him.
Lionel Sharp, 54, passed away on Thursday morning after suffering from what his family described as constant, debilitating headaches.
Sharp's niece told reporters that the family had made desperate, repeated calls to emergency services seeking help for her uncle, but their pleas went unanswered. By the time journalists from eNCA arrived on the ground to report on the story, Sharp's body was still inside the home, with his family gathered around him, traumatised and waiting.
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Eastern Cape's ambulance crisis
The tragedy has shone a harsh light on a crisis that has been brewing in the Eastern Cape for some time. The provincial health department is operating with a severely depleted emergency fleet, with 161 of its 353 ambulances currently grounded and out of service. That leaves just 192 vehicles officially operational to cover the needs of more than seven million people across the province.
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The Eastern Cape Health Department has acknowledged the shortage and said it expects 20 replacement ambulances to be delivered by the end of the week, with a further six set to arrive before the end of the year. For the Sharp family, however, that announcement came too late.
Pensioner advocate complaints bout ambulance services
In related news, a South African pensioners' rights activist shared an emotional video from his living room on 3 August 2026, speaking openly about the harrowing night he and his family had just endured after his mother fell seriously ill. The man, known online as part of the Pensioners of South Africa (POSA) platform described arriving at the emergency unit and waiting hours before any meaningful help came. The ambulance took three and a half hours to arrive. Once at the hospital, opening a patient file took a further six to eight hours, according to what staff told the family.
Ambulance gets stuck in pothole in KZN
Briefly News also reported that an ambulance in KZN got stuck in a huge pothole in Westville. KZN Department of Transport MEC ipho Hlomuka suffered embarrassment as he stood by and watched people struggle to pull it out of the pothole. After the video was posted to social media, South Africans took to the comments section to speak about the deteriorating service delivery in the country.
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Source: Briefly News
