Panic and alarm turned to relief on Monday when community members and rescuers banded together to find a four-year-old boy shaken but unharmed after an extensive search on the Sacramento Trail in Schoenmakerskop.
Physically and mentally exhausted that is how paramedics and ambulance service workers in Nelson Mandela Bay describe their situation due to crippling staff shortages, with many now at breaking point.
A few days after the contracts of thousands of Covid-19 healthcare workers expired at the end of December, burnt-out paramedics and ambulance service workers in Gqeberha were left to deal with the chaotic ripple effect of battling the pandemic without help.