Management Centre (PDMC) and Emergency Management Medical Services (EMMS)
19 November 2007
In preparation for the 2010 Football World Cup and for the day-to-day
operations of the provincial disaster and emergency services, the Gauteng
Provincial Government will officially launch the Provincial Disaster Management
Centre and the Provincial Emergency Management Medical Services on Wednesday,
21 November 2007.
The R50-million state-of-the-art centre situated in Midrand, Johannesburg
will be officially opened by Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa and Local
Government MEC Qedani Dorothy Mahlangu and Health MEC Brian Hlongwa. The
Gauteng Disaster and Emergency Management Medical Centres are aimed to
coordinate all disaster and emergencies related issues in the province.
Mahlangu said the Premier has expressed excitement that Gauteng has finally
responded to the challenges of dealing with issues of disaster in an integrated
and coordinated fashion.
"The Premier made a commitment during his State of the Province Address in
February this year that in order for the province to deal with all emergency
and disaster related issues effectively, a disaster centre situated in a
central point will be launched. This is an indication that our pursuance of the
Global City Region is becoming a reality.
"The promulgation of the Disaster Management Act in 2004 has placed a strict
requirement on provinces and municipalities in South Africa to ensure that
respective communities would be protected against potential risk and have
sufficient capacity to deal with disasters should it happen.
"The launch follows an intensive work with the development of the Disaster
Management Framework and Provincial Disaster Management Framework. We have also
taken extensive preparations for the establishment of the centre. This is a
culmination of a two year project in which has been the development of the most
modern provincial disaster management which is integrated with the disaster
management centres of municipalities," said Mahlangu.
She said the centre would also ensure effective emergency planning projects
such as the 2010 Football World Cup and Gauteng Rapid Rail system.
According to Hlongwa the Gauteng Department of Health would also implement a
new model of service delivery which includes the expansion of the provision of
Planned Patient Transport between health care institutions as well as the
delivery of ambulance services directly under the management of the Department
of Health.
He said the existing Control Centre operated by the department as a
co-ordination centre for EMMS was not developed for this purpose and the
capacity was already being exceeded. For this reason the Department
investigated various options to implement a new control centre to perform these
functions.
"As EMMS and Disaster Management need to function closely in many cases it
was considered in the best interest of the functions of both departments to
combine our efforts and jointly develop a site which would house both the
Provincial Disaster Management Centre and the Emergency Medical Services
Control Centre.
"After assessing various options, the new site at Continuity SA was found to
be the most suitable as it was centrally located, within a very stable
geographic area and with more than adequate resilience with regard to
electricity supply and communications infrastructure.
The event will be attended among others, Gauteng executive mayors, municipal
managers, chief fire-fighters, emergency practitioners and top government
officials.
Details are as follows:
Date: 21 November 2007
Time: 18h00
Venue: Cnr Old Pretoria Road and Tonneti Streets, Continuity SA Building,
Midrand
Enquiries:
Themba Sepotokele
Department of Local government
Tel: 011 355 5111
Cell: 082 490 9869
Zanele Mngadi
Department of Health
Tel: 011 355 3503
Cell: 092 330 1148
Issued by: Department of Local Government, Gauteng Provincial
Government
19 November 2007
