A senior lecturer at Wits is researching sleep deprivation and disruption among SA’s first responders, and lobbying for change that looks out for the people who always show up for us at our worst.
Johannesburg, South Africa (08 November 2025) – Most of us only think about paramedics and ER teams the moment we actually need them. We don’t really picture them hours later, battling to grab two hours of broken sleep or driving home after a night of emergencies, running on fumes.
That’s the part Dr Joshua Davimes is trying to change.
A senior lecturer at Wits, he’s made it his mission to understand what constant sleep disruption does to first responders in South Africa…and what can be done to protect them from it. A lot of it is fieldwork that happens in the early-morning limbo that emergency workers pass through at ambulance bases, hospital corridors, and parking lots.
Dr Davimes’ research group focuses specifically on people working in high-stress, extreme environments like paramedics, ER doctors, emergency physicians and security members.
His findings paint a worrying picture that we aren’t generally exposed to. Responders are trying to save lives while battling burnout, irregular hours, untreated traumas and chronic exhaustion.
These are people who, as Dr Davimes puts it, “sacrifice five to ten years of their lifespan” simply by doing their jobs.
Studying the problem is only half of what drives Dr Davimes. His work and goals lie in changing the systems that make this exhaustion feel normal.
He has been pushing for practical, realistic fixes. Better shift scheduling. Predictable rest periods. Proper bunks at ambulance bases. Small changes that protect the people who protect the rest of us.
He’s also been working to show health departments and emergency services just how much sleep affects decision-making, reaction time and long-term health. This kind of evidence could influence rota design, staffing plans and even how emergency personnel are trained.
His bigger mission is to change how we think about sleep itself. Especially in environments where rest is treated like a luxury, a laziness, or a weakness.
Through ongoing research in his position at Wits, Dr Davimes is slowly building data that can rewrite policy, shift workplace culture and ultimately protect the emergency responders who show up for us on our worst days.
If you want to know more, we’d recommend you read the article Wits published about Joshua here.
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