At Site Based Medical Services we get tested on a daily basis to make sure that we are always ready to respond if the need arises. At this stage, all of you may be thinking that the crew that work at Site Based Medical Services is sitting around all day waiting for a mine or industrial call. Well that is not the case. We attend to every injury on the sites and make sure that all the injuries are reported. We do audits on first aid teams and equipment and do site inspections on a daily basis to make sure we stay familiar with changes on the sites.

On the 28th of October 2010 we had a mock emergency drill on the Kumba site in Postmansburg that included air evacuation, a rescue and a fire after the rescue. This simulation was a bus which collided with a bakkie and we had 57 patients who had to be treated and transported. A triage area was set up and patients were transported to the Trauma centre on site which can handle 8 red patients at a time and to a secondary triage centre at the Life clinic.

The Kimberly and Kathu branches assisted us with an ambulance each and the onsite ambulances were used to get all patients transported to the facilities. In total 6 ambulances were used and we called on Aero-care to assist with the air transportation.
This type of mock drill is done to keep ER24 Site Based Medical Services prepared and updated. We also do a variety of other mock drills such as High angle rescue, Confined space rescue, Cyanide and other Hazardous material incidents. Beside these, on a daily basis, we also handle normal incidents like medical cases and other trauma related calls.

At present the Site Base Medical Services component of the company has the following sites:

• Kumba Iron ore in Postmasburg,  Fire and Ambulance service
• Tommy`s Air Field Fire and Rescue service Beeshoek (Kumba Iron ore)
• Ashanti Gold Orkney Ambulance service and Medics in the mine trauma rooms
• Ashanti Gold Cartonville Ambulance service
• Xstrata Coal Witbank Ambulance and Rescue service
• Sasol Secunda Industrial Ambulance service
• Mpumalanga Branch Ambulance service in Secunda