The waiting list for surgery at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital has ballooned to the extent that there are now 11 194 patients awaiting operations, up nearly 4 000 cases since last year, with some of them being told they will have to wait until December for treatment, and others having to wait nearly five years.
The delays have been attributed to insufficient theatre time, non-availability of ICU beds, power outages and the prolonged closure of the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital trauma unit due to last year’s fire, reports TimesLIVE.
Gauteng health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi disclosed the crisis last week in response to questions posed by DA shadow health MEC Jack Bloom, a member of the provincial legislature, saying 3 394 cataract patients will wait for a year to regain their sight, while more than 700 acute care and trauma surgery patients have a wait of six months to a year.
As at 31 August, 622 children have to wait a year for orthopaedic surgery, another 1 304 have a six-month wait for general surgery, 243 men suffering with enlarged prostate glands have a wait of two to three years, while another 41 diagnosed with prostate cancer have to wait six months. Six children with brain tumours have to wait four months for the surgery they need.
The worst waiting time is for 1 777 people who need hip and knee replacements, with the backlog resulting in a wait of four and a half years.
Bloom said better management could help fix some of the other identified problems, like broken equipment, non-functioning autoclaves and dysfunctional boilers. He said compounding the problem was that many public health patients had to wait a long time to be diagnosed, so their suffering during the extended delay was immense.
“Some waiting lists only get shorter because patients die while waiting. Surgery blitzes in the evenings and on weekends will help to cut the lists, and private hospitals can be paid to do surgery for public patients,” he said.
In June, Bara Hospital CEO Dr Nkele Lesia said, during an oversight visit by the Human Rights Commission, that emergency surgeries were prioritised as the patient load was too heavy for their 43 surgical theatres.
TimesLIVE article – Surgery backlogs soar at Bara Hospital as patients suffer (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
‘Alarming’ shortages at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital – Health MEC
Backlog of 7,000 surgery patients at Chris Hani Baragwanath
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