The Democratic Alliance (DA) is putting pressure on South Africa’s provincial health departments to release more details about their COVID-19 testing and confirmed cases, saying credible and consistent data is vital for guiding interventions, reports Business Day. At present, Gauteng and the Western Cape are releasing daily figures for their testing numbers, confirmed cases and fatalities, but the others are not.
The DA’s health spokesperson, Siviwe Gwarube, said that the party planned to submit Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) applications to provincial health departments in a bid to compel them to release detailed COVID-19 statistics.
According to the report, Gwarube says the national Health Department requires provincial health departments to submit detailed COVID-19 data to it every day, and it should be made public as it is an important tool for holding the government to account, said Africa. “There seems to be a desire in some provinces to withhold data from the public for no reason at all. As an example of this absurdity, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government is claiming that these statistics are embargoed,” she said.
“Information about a global pandemic that is wreaking havoc in our country should never be considered classified. That goes against section 32(1)(a) of the constitution, which determines that everyone has a right of access to any information held by the state,” she said.
The DA-led Western Cape had been transparent with its testing data and strategy, unlike the Eastern Cape which failed to disclose its figures and had effectively hidden its low testing rate from public scrutiny, she said.
The Eastern Cape provincial government is, meanwhile, in a last-minute scramble to recruit medical experts to advise it on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic as it battles to control the number of escalating positive cases. This is according to a Mail & Guardian report which said it has established that Premier Oscar Mabuyane’s office has now started a drive to bring medical experts on board to advise his government on dealing with COVID-19.
This is more than 30 days after the province registered its first case of COVID-19, back on 25 March. And it is despite the Eastern Cape having registered the fourth-highest number of positive COVID-19 cases.
The report says nursing unions have told their members not to work without proper personal protective equipment (PPE). This is because of the serious shortage of PPE in the province.
The report says in the province’s attempt to fight the spread of COVID-19, Mabuyane’s spokesperson, Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha, said that they have roped in former health MEC Dr Bevan Goqwana “to provide clinical advice to the OR Tambo district joint operations center” and his former superintendent general, Dr Siva Pillay, to provide clinical advice to the Sarah Baartman and Nelson Mandela Bay Metro joint operations centre.
The report says it is unclear why, unlike other provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape had waited for more than a month to establish a team of experts to direct its efforts to contain COVID-19, especially in a province with inadequate health facilities and far-flung rural villages.
[link url="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2020-05-04-provinces-must-release-covid-19-data-so-testing-strategies-can-be-assessed/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Ramaphosa+tries+to+stub+out+rumours+he+was+overruled+on+tobacco+ban+%7C+Absa+PMI+falls+in+April+as+lockdown+takes+its+toll+on+factories+%7C+Redefine+swings+into+R6bn+loss&utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businesslive.co.za%2Fbd%2Fnational%2Fhealth%2F2020-05-04-provinces-must-release-covid-19-data-so-testing-strategies-can-be-assessed%2F"]Full Business Day report[/link]
[link url="https://mg.co.za/article/2020-04-29-wanted-medical-experts-in-the-eastern-cape/"]Full Mail & Guardian report[/link]