The Democratic Alliance (DA) reports that it was denied access to Addington Hospital by KZN Health MEC, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu on Thursday of last week ahead of an oversight inspection to assess the facility’s ongoing lift crisis, in a statement carried on the Polity site
The DA said: “This despite having followed the procedure set out by the Department of Health (DoH) and requesting permission to conduct the inspection. After being denied access earlier this morning, I contacted the office of the HOD, Sandile Tshabalala. I was informed that it was in fact the MEC who, yesterday, did not authorised the oversight. No reasons were given and at this stage the DA still has no formal notification for being barred entry.
“Addington is a multi-storey hospital providing vital emergency medical services to hundreds of thousands of people. Of particular concern to the DA is that the DoH has already spent millions of rands repairing the lifts during the past few years. Yet they remain dysfunctional, affecting the health and well-being of patients, staff and visitors to the hospital some of whom are forced to climb as many as 14 storeys.
“While the DoH has indicated that the current lift crisis is the cause of rain water ingress and electrical issues, the DA questions this explanation.”
[link url="https://www.polity.org.za/article/addington-lift-crisis-kzn-health-mec-blocks-da-oversight-inspection-2020-02-06"]Full report on the Polity site[/link]