After an unannounced visit to two hospitals in the Eastern Cape, an irate Public Protector Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka said the public health sector was in dire need of renewal, and that no progress had been made since Covid-19, reports Daily Dispatch.
Gcaleka said she was prompted to visit the facilities – in Gqeberha and Butterworth – after numerous reports were sent to her office and the provincial offices “of a stagnant health sector which has continually deteriorated since the Covid-19 pandemic”.
She expressed “extreme dissatisfaction” after her visit to Livingstone Hospital in Gqeberha, which had already been under investigation by her office in 2021, and which has long been plagued by prolonged leadership vacancies, no approved organogram, underfunding and overcrowding.
The situation was concerning, she told the Dispatch, but the many issues were not restricted just to the one hospital, and her office had been looking into the many public facilities in the province.
“There are challenges with delivering just basic healthcare, which is a common problem throughout the Eastern Cape,” she said.
“We need to ensure we are able to monitor the implementation of remedial actions … but very little progress has been seen since the time of the pandemic.”
Gcaleka added that the hospitals were not sticking to the constitutional mandate of treating people with dignity.
On Livingstone, she said: “We must acknowledge that a few things have been addressed, which we had raised in our report…
“However, the crux of the problems – doctors, nurses, having sufficient staff to be able to deliver services and meet the demands – those issues have not yet been addressed.
“Yes, beds have been delivered, but they are not sufficient.
“The demand is higher, and the reason is that the issue of primary and secondary services within the healthcare system have not been addressed.
“Those were all the issues we had mentioned in our report, because at the end of the day, the constitution calls upon the right to life for people to be treated with dignity, and the healthcare centre is one of those machineries of the state which ensure that what is enshrined in our constitution is realised by our communities.”
Her comments follow the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) visit to Ntabozuko in July, where a clinic was under investigation for denying patients their right to dignity and privacy.
Meanwhile, in August, the provincial Health department was called “a dead zone” after a week-long oversight visit to various facilities by the provincial legislature’s Health Portfolio Committee.
Committee Chair Koliswa Vimbayo said at the time that some raised troubling concerns, particularly the state of the Holy Cross Hospital in Flagstaff.
“The delegation found significant infrastructure and service delivery challenges still unresolved,” she said.
“The hospital, which serves more than 600 000 people, is also facing critical staff shortages, while 44 hospital beds remain unusable.
“Additional concerns included the lack of a dedicated mental health unit, the closure of the rehabilitation unit and delays in key infrastructure projects,” Vimbayo said.
Speaking on how the sector might possibly be resuscitated, DA MPL Jane Cowley said an urgent review of the financial management of the department’s books was needed, alongside an overhaul of the department’s management.
“The department has long talked about a plan to re-engineer healthcare services by strengthening primary and secondary healthcare services, but this ‘plan’ remains largely unfunded and unimplemented,” she said.
“The main reason is that the department is factually bankrupt and carries billions of rands of unsettled debt.
“It therefore purposefully does not fill critical clinical and non-clinical funded posts and instead uses that money to try to partially settle debts and successful medico-legal claims against it.
“Although the term consequence management is bandied about at every meeting, this is a rare occurrence.
“Consequences for unethical behaviour and malfeasance of any sort should be dealt with swiftly and harshly if we are to change this culture of abuse.”
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Eastern Cape Health: R920m in negligence payouts and R4bn in unpaid bills