Mabuza embarks on all 32 provincial hospital visits
05 November 2012
Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza has conceded that the health sector in the province is not in a good state.
He has however embarked on a fact finding mission of the situation in all 32 provincial hospitals in order to have first-hand information on the challenges and the kind of intervention needed.
Over the weekend [Saturday – Sunday, 03 – 04 November 2012] Mabuza visited at least the first nine hospitals within the Nkangala District
Municipality and has been met with dissatisfaction by the poor state of affairs.
Although the situation differed from one hospital to the other, he discovered the staff and equipment shortages as the major challenges affecting the hospitals.
His first stop was in Bernice Samuel Hospital in Delmas which has 52 beds with only four sisters who ended up doing the work of the auxiliary nurses. The sisters were continuously working overtime as there were no extra people to relieve them or when they were off-duty.
The hospital’s out-patient department was reportedly receiving about 60 patients daily. The hospital also had no fridges for storage of certain medication and the mortuary’s cold room was not working as corpses were left in the open and rotting.
The nurses told the Premier that they were mostly depressed as the situation was worsening da-by-day. They told Mabuza that they did not have painkillers in the hospital, such as panado, for four months and other anti-biotics were not enough.
They told the Premier that other nurses were not interested in working in the hospital as there was no safe accommodation in the area and that the nurse’s home was fully occupied.
They added that although nurses from other provinces were prepared to work, however vacant posts had been frozen.
Meanwhile the Premier has asked the hospital to submit the list of all the needs to the provincial director-general’s office and to the department of health in order for to plan for urgent interventions.
He explained to them that the provincial government had lifted the moratorium on all posts and that they should have employed more staff members.
The Premier was distressed to see admitted patients served with only a slice of brown bread with small portions of chicken livers for breakfast.
“This is not how we should treat our people, as a provincial government we want the hospitals to function and serve our people correctly, otherwise we are saying when people are sick they should come and die in our hospitals.
“The public perception about government hospitals must change, it cannot be right that people would prefer to stay home simply because they are afraid that when they come to government hospitals, they will die before they are attended to.
“It is high time that we should stop being defensive and prioritise the health of our people. Those who are given the responsibility of ensuring that our people get health care, should do so or else we will relieve them if they cannot do their work,” said Premier Mabuza.
In some hospitals, people stood in long queues and others did not have enough medication.
“In as much as we would want to say we are providing health care, we are deliberately killing our people when we make them defraud on treatments because we cannot give them medication for their chronic diseases,” said the Premier.
The Premier is expected to resume his visits to the hospitals on Friday.
Issued by Zibonele Mncwango
Spokesperson: Mpumalanga Premier
Tel: (013) 766 – 2453
Mobile: 079 491 0163
E-mail: zmncwango@mpg.gov.za
