The Public Servants Association (PSA) wants the Public Protector and the Human Rights Commission (HRC) to investigate a list of alleged health violations, including medicine, water and ambulance shortages, in KwaZulu-Natal.
Regional PSA labour relations officer Roshan Lil-Ruthan told TimesLIVE they wanted probes into ongoing medicine shortages, the non-provision of potable water at government facilities and the continued use of asbestos at some healthcare institutions.
Other human rights violations, it alleged, included the dire shortage of emergency responders.
“The province has allowed its ambulance fleet to deteriorate, resulting in a shortage of more than 700 ambulances. On a daily basis, people are dying because we can’t get to them in time, and our members are coming under attack as a consequence. We urge the HRC to intervene.”
The PSA also complained that Prince Mshiyeni Hospital in Umlazi has had a water shortage for three weeks, affecting the institution’s ability to maintain a sterile environment and cater to patients’ “basic ablution needs”, and halting emergency surgeries.
However, provincial Health Department MEC Nomagugu Simelane denied the province was running out of medicine.
She said there were issues with service provider payments but these had been ironed out, and that there were “normal” medication shortages when a supplier was overwhelmed by orders from different provinces at the same time.
She said a new stock management system had been unfavourably received by certain people in the supply chain, and that they were behind claims of shortages.
However, the PSA and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) said there was definitely a shortage of some drugs, that mental health medicines like clopixol, ARV therapy treatment ABC 300MG and 3TC 150MG as well as pregnancy tests, were not available.
ActionSA has raised the matter with provincial chair Zwakele Mncwango, who asked KZN Premier Thami Ntuli to intervene, in a letter he wrote last week.
Simelane said the department had gone to the provincial pharmaceutical supply depot and confirmed with the manager that the province was not running out of medical stock, that claims saying otherwise stemmed from people opposed to the management system introduced in December to centralise the procurement process.
“In the past you just ordered medication at whatever pace you wanted. We can’t continue to work like that … If we continue operating as if money falls from trees, then one of these days the department will collapse.”
Water tankers
She said contingency plans were in place at Prince Mshiyeni regarding water supply, and the municipality would increase water tankers to 10 a day.
Lil-Ruthan urged the Health Professions Council of SA, the South African Nursing Council and similar professional bodies to fulfil their oversight responsibilities and protect their members, who are being forced to deliver substandard care due to the lack of necessary resources.
He said the PSA wanted a meeting with the leadership of the SAHRC and public protector to discuss the matters and explore solutions.
Public protector spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe confirmed receipt of a complaint from the PSA and said the matter was being assessed.
“This will determine if the Public Protector has jurisdiction over the complaint or if it should refer the matter to another competent institution,” said Phasiwe.
KwaZulu-Natal SAHRC acting manager Benjamin Ntombela said he was not aware of the complaint from the PSA.
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Stock-outs: A ‘shadow epidemic’ of psychiatric illness looms in SA