Travel Smart

The national police emergency number, free from a landline and charged at standard rates from a mobile. 112 works from any mobile and also reaches fire and ambulance. The police service's own site would not load during verification, so this is sourced to the UK Foreign Office instead.

The national public ambulance number, which the UK Foreign Office also gives for fire. Response quality and speed vary sharply by province, which is why most residents with the means to do so call a private service instead.

A private, billed emergency response network that dispatches its own crews rather than going through 10177. In most metros this is the practical alternative to the public number, and travel insurance usually covers it.

The other major private network, also self-dispatching. The number is confirmed from the UK government's own list of medical facilities in South Africa, since Netcare does not publish its dispatch number on its public pages.

Cape Town's own combined line, where an operator routes you to police, fire or ambulance. The city publishes no fire-only number.

Johannesburg's 24-hour line for fire engines, ambulances and metro police, published on the city's own site alongside the national police number.

A private hospital in central Cape Town with a trauma and emergency unit, and one that travel insurers commonly use. The number is Netcare's general booking line rather than a dedicated emergency line, since no facility-specific emergency number is published.

A private hospital in Johannesburg with a Level 1 trauma centre. As with Christiaan Barnard Memorial, only Netcare's shared booking line is published; a direct trauma-unit number appears on aggregator sites but not on Netcare's own, so it is not carried here.