Hout Bay Volunteer Emergency Medical Service (HBVEMS) is Cape Towns oldest volunteer ambulance service. The organisation has been operational since 1994, but Matthew joined back in 2008 as a volunteer medic. In 2013, Matthew took on the role of CEO, managing the executive committee to ensure the smooth operations of the service.
HBVEMS and its volunteers are committed to improving the access to emergency healthcare and training community members in first aid. It achieves this by running an emergency ambulance over weekends and public holidays, in conjunction with the Western Cape Dept. of Health - Emergency Medical Service. The organisation targets geographically isolated communities in Hout Bay that have low rates of health insurance and a high disease burden. In the past 5 years, the organisation has responded to over 3,000 emergency medical incidents, and 95% of recipients of their service are significantly socio-economically disadvantaged. Each call attended to by the organisation's volunteers allows the provincial EMS ambulances to respond to other pending calls. Priority calls are responded to in an average time of 9 minutes, 61% of which are medical emergencies and 34% are responses to trauma. During the pandemic, volunteers have slightly reduced operations to minimise the risk of the spread of the virus. The ambulance was modified to ensure crew safety and so that it could stay operational, and thankfully trauma-related incidents reduced.
The organisation is also expanding its training and education programmes, to empower people to protect their peers and react in an emergency. Having trained 30 people in 2019 to administer first aid, this branch of operations was put on hold as a result of the pandemic. However, the organisation aims to reach an estimated 100 people per year once the Covid-19 restrictions relax.
