Directorates

The EMS has five directorates:

• Operations, which deals with the response to wide range of incidents, such as fire, medical, rescue, water rescue and hazmat disasters. Employees are called FF/EMTs (fire fighters and emergency medical technicians) as they fight fires and operate ambulances. Some are specially trained to cope with hazmat. Operations is also responsible for the Command and Control Centre, which receives calls about disasters and dispatches emergency services. Most of the calls are medical in nature, some are fire-related; fire calls increase in winter when there are more grass and veld fires and electrical equipment like heaters is misused.
• Disaster management and pier (public information, education and relations) division deals with disaster planning and mitigation. It needs to ensure that every disaster is anticipated and that there are plans in place to deal with any eventuality. When a disaster happens, this directorate responds. It runs the Disaster Management Centre according to the Disaster Management Act. The pier division takes care of public information and education in a bid to prevent or minimise incidents.
• Proactive services and fire safety focuses on preventing fires. It focuses on code application, code enforcement and events management, among other aspects. Its main business is ensuring that buildings, building plans, transporting hazardous materials (hazmat) and events comply with fire safety laws.
• Corporate services and academy supports the EMS with a wide range of services, including training, fleet management, human resources, finance, administrative services and mess. Some of its key programmes are the chaplaincy service and employee assistance programmes.
• Management support focuses on communications and marketing, quality assurance and research, transformation and employment equity, and special projects. Departmental planning, such as sector planning, business plans and scorecards, falls under this directorate. It also deals with organisational research, processes, capacity building, performance management, support, monitoring and reviews.
  

There are a number of laws and policies that govern the core functions of the EMS: the Disaster Management Act, the Municipal Systems Act, the Gauteng Ambulance Services Act, the Fire Brigade Act, the Health Services Act, the Road Traffic Act, the Veld and Forest Fire Act and the Communication Act.

Operations directorate (reactive incident management)

Operations is one of the core departments in the EMS. It deals with the saving of lives and property once disasters or accidents have happened. Some of the critical components in this directorate are emergency medical services (ambulances and paramedics), fire fighting and rescue programmes.

All employees are trained in medical and fire services. They also run various fire appliances and ambulances.

Emergency medical services (ambulances)

Emergency medical services provides life support from a basic to advanced level throughout the city. Ambulances are manned by FF/EMTs trained in basic or intermediate life-support, while response cars are manned by advanced life-support paramedics. EMTs and paramedics working in Johannesburg are among the most experienced emergency medical practitioners in the world as crews are constantly exposed to all forms of medical and traumatic emergencies.

Fire fighting

Putting out fires is one of the FF/EMTs’ favourite assignments. Fire fighting is a highly technical and always dangerous activity with old and unstable buildings, new and hastily built constructions and a vast selection of synthetic materials and chemicals posing dangers.

This division has a large range of specialised vehicles and equipment to ensure rapid response to emergencies to provide an efficient fire-fighting service.

Rescue

This function is usually performed by the same FF/EMTs responsible for fire fighting.

They respond in fire engines or rescue vehicles specially equipped to deal with most forms of technical rescues, such as rescues from cars and trucks after accidents, hazardous materials incidents, trench collapse, building collapse, confined space rescue, high angle rescue, swift water rescue and emergency scuba diving.

Other special services include lift rescues and getting people and animals out of life-threatening situations.

Command and control centre

The Command and control centre is the EMS’s nerve centre. It is here that calls come in from the Joburg Connect emergency call centre, 011 375 5911, and the teams are assigned to the emergency.

The dispatching arm sends out vehicles and co-ordinates all vehicle movements. All calls are co-ordinated and monitored at the call centre, which is staffed by four supervisors and 46 dispatchers, who are trained to handle all emergencies.

Joburg Connect controls the call-taking side of the system through a memorandum of understanding and a service level agreement. All calls are received by Joburg Connect and automatically transferred to the dispatching centre, which sends out the required vehicles.

The tracking system is one of the department’s major investments, which ensures that the response times are improved. This system is up-and-running and will improve over time.

Contact:

Deon Spohr
Director of operations
Tel: 011 758 9526
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Disaster management and pier directorate

This directorate has two main divisions, pier and disaster management.

Public information, education and relations (pier)

Rather than wait for disasters to strike, pier focuses on pre-incident training and preparedness geared towards training the public to avoid and cope with all types of emergencies and disasters. The division also aims to minimise the amount of risk factors and situations to which people may be exposed by creating safer living and working environments. Pier is also responsible for keeping the City informed of the EMS’s activities. It has established Be- Safe Centres that are strategically placed to enable communities to get and receive the information they need.

Disaster management

The objective of the disaster management division is to minimise loss of life, injury and loss or damage to property, and to restore essential services as quickly as possible by means of an integrated disaster management approach.

For functional purposes, the division has divided Johannesburg into southern and northern segments, and an operations manager has been assigned to monitor the two areas.

Following a shift from a primarily reactive to a more pro-active approach, a five-phase disaster management programme has been designed to prevent, mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from the effects of all disasters.

The programme involves institutional capacity, risk assessment, risk reduction, response and relief. Disaster management is a co-ordination function whereby personnel has to ensure that departments have contingency plans and are ready to respond to any hazards that happen in their departments.

There are guidelines that must be followed when plans are drawn up, which are available from the division.

Contact:

Nongezo Mekgwe
Director of disaster management and pier
Tel: 011 758 9523/28
Fax: 011 381 9077
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Proactive services directorate (investigations, code application and code enforcement)

The directorate focuses on fire safety, looking at code application, code enforcement and events management, among others.

Its core business is being the custodian of safety standards to ensure that fire risks are managed proactively when hazmat (hazardous material) is transported, events are hosted, buildings are erected or renovated and flammable liquids are stored.

It ensures that buildings comply with the National Building Regulations set out in the SABS 0400 1987. It also informs and advises occupants about safety precautions and storing flammable liquids and gas. It deals with both business and private premises. Where necessary punitive measures are taken if there is a gross non-compliance or repeat non-compliance. Working with other City departments, this directorate plays a critical role in Joburg’s inner city initiatives.

Joburg’s rapid expansion has led to an increase in the number of fire-related emergencies because of poor adherence to fire safety precautions and fire code applications by the building industry. This has led to increased fire risks - and, as a result, the EMS has set up preventative fire safety programmes.

Its functions include:

• The application and enforcement of municipal by-laws and other safety legislation relating to fire by means of the routine inspection of buildings and fire plans;
• Ensuring the implementation of sound fire engineering principles and practices by liaising with the public, consultants, architects and a wide range of technical committees and professional bodies;
• The prevention of uncontrolled fires through lectures and film shows to the public;
• In the event of a fire, ensuring its intensity and duration is limited by empowering the public to handle such an emergency;
• Determining the cause of a fire and using the information gathered to inform awareness campaigns, including legislative compliance; and
• Management of fire works storage, transportation and display in public places.
  

Contact:

Kgati Malebana
Director of proactive services
Tel: 011 758 9533
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Corporate services and academy directorate

Corporate services renders an all-important support function to the other EMS directorates, making it possible for each directorate to perform its life-saving role.

Training academy

Fire fighters and emergency medical technicians (FF/EMTs) are trained in-house at the EMS’s academy based in Brixton, Rietfontein and Florida Park.

The academy is accredited national and internationally, and internationally accredited instructors conduct most levels of training.

There is also career-oriented training for existing staff and new recruits as well for private individuals who want to be trained as fire fighters and emergency medical technicians. Ongoing classroom and on-the-job training is provided to ensure the highest level of competence in the use of expensive, state-of-the-art and sophisticated equipment, the aim being to optimise manpower and resources.

Human resources

Personnel services works behind the scenes managing the human resources aspect of the EMS, which has 1 400 staff members.

Finance

This department provides financial support services to EMS divisions and departments, such as accounting, budgeting, revenue collection, credit control, procurement, internal control, and financial monitoring and control.

Contact:

Thulane Madonsela
Director of corporate services and academy
Tel: 011 758 9532
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Management support directorate

Among the critical aspects in this directorate are communications and marketing, quality assurance and research, transformation and employment equity, and special projects.

Some of the work it does is departmental planning, for example, sector planning, business plans and scorecards. It also deals with organisational research, processes, capacity building, performance management, support, monitoring and review.

Quality assurance and research

The ISO 9000 programme was adopted to ensure the customer gets the best service. The quality assurance division is responsible for implementing this programme and ensuring that all the necessary implementation, support and monitoring plans are in place. It also ensures that implementation is reviewed at the end of the programme.

Communication and marketing

Communication and marketing deals with internal communication in the organisation. In line with City processes and protocols, it also deals with external communication to ensure that the good image of the department. Another responsibility is establishing the branding policy.

Transformation and employment equity

To ensure that the department complies with the necessary transformation imperatives the transformation and employment equity division looks at broader equity and the necessary interventions to ensure that the organisation is transformed.

Special projects

This division deals with all the organisational planning processes, like public safety sector plans, business plans and performance management. Aspects like audits, process reviews and support programmes are also handled by the division.

Contact:

Lungile Dukwana
Director of management support
Tel: 011 758 9545
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