A total of over 5m patients visited various Gauteng health facilities from the first quarter of the 2017/18 financial year to the third quarter to 31 December. The Times reports that this was revealed by the report of the Gauteng Health Department tabled before the portfolio committee of health in the province.
In the report presented by health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa‚ the City of Johannesburg recorded the highest patient headcount at 1.83m‚ followed by the City of Ekurhuleni with 1.3m and the City of Tshwane with just over 1m patients. Some of the patients who walked into public health facilities in Gauteng were from the other provinces‚ some even from the other parts of the African continent.
Ramokgopa told the committee that her department was still under financial pressure as demand for health services was outstripping the available resources. “The untenable financial position of the department with accumulated accruals and huge liabilities whist demand for services and disease burden remained high‚ necessitating the establishment of the executive sub-committee on health finances… Budget adjustment helped ease the situation albeit minimally given the gravity of the situation‚” Ramokgopa said.
The report says during the adjustment budget presented by finance MEC Barbara Creecy in November‚ the Gauteng Health Department received the highest adjustment of R1.7bn to help deal with its problems.
Ramokgopa said the department was busy trying to refill key senior positions which were left vacant during an exodus which began in December. The departure of senior personnel happened during the arbitration hearings of the Life Esidimeni crisis which left about 140 psychiatric patients dead.
“Management instability and capacity remained a challenge with resignations of at least eight senior managers to date. An intervention task team to strengthen capacity‚ systems and controls as well as clinical governance was made in consultation with Minister of Health (Aaron Motsoaledi) and Premier (David Makhura)‚” she explained.
Ramokgopa has, during her presentation of a report to the Gauteng portfolio committee on health detailing active plans to deal with the outbreak, admitted that it is difficult for the provincial government to manage the spread of listeriosis in the province, reports The Times.
She told the committee that a number of teams had been set up guided by specialists and experts from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and World Health Organisation to deal with the spread of listeriosis.
Ramokgopa admitted it has been hard trying to contain the spread of the disease. “It is not as easy as management of a measles outbreak. With measles we know them and were able to contain within a limited period of time. But this one has been really difficult and that is why we are working with the agriculture sector to make sure that there are no possible areas of risk and infection. Gauteng is also heavily affected because of the fact that it is a referral centre‚” said Ramokgopa.
The report says that on 5 December 5‚ Motsoaledi announced an outbreak of listeriosis in the country. At the time there were 36 recorded deaths nationally caused by listeriosis‚ of which 27 were in Gauteng. Last week‚ the death toll from the listeriosis outbreak topped 100 – the worst documented listeriosis outbreak in global history.
[link url="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-02-13-over-5-million-patients-seen-in-health-facilities-in-gauteng/"]The Times report[/link]
[link url="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-02-13-listeriosis-outbreak-difficult-to-manage-ramokgopa-admits/"]The Times report[/link]