Introduction There has been a growing prevalence of patients with chronic medical conditions in South Africa, diabetes mellitus being one of them. Acute symptomatic hypoglycaemia (SH) refers to decreased level of plasma glucose Methods A retrospective cross-sectional study design was used. Patient report forms from patients with SH managed in the pre-hospital setting between May 2012 and September 2012 in the greater Cape Town area were extracted from the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) database. A follow-up survey using a closed-ended questionnaire was administered to these same patients within seven days post-reversal to evaluate the efficacy of pre-hospital discharge of SH patients. Results A total of 110 eligible patients were identified and telephonically interviewed. It was found that 21 (19%) of cases had subsequently died. Of the 89 remaining cases, 30 (34%) reactivated EMS within seven days of discharge, independent of SH being the chief complaint. In total, 48 (54%) had recurrent episodes of SH within seven days of discharge by EMS. In 47 (53%) of cases discharged by EMS, no follow-up instructions were provided to mitigate recurrent SH episodes or complications. Conclusion More than half of patients who received pre-hospital treatment and discharge for SH had recurrent symptoms post-reversal by EMS staff, with a third needing to reactivate EMS. This would suggest that the current strategy of dealing with such cases needs careful re-evaluation to improve the quality of management of this patient population.