Women who had just given birth in Eastern Cape hospitals had to sleep on cold floors and benches because of a bed shortage, the Commission for Gender Equality told the Portfolio Committee on Health last week, adding that its investigation into six hospitals also found patients sharing beds, blood on the floors, and mould-covered showers used by women after surgery, reports IOL.
The findings, said Tsietsi Shuping, the commission’s head of legal services, came from hearings with the hospitals and the provincial Health Department, and from unannounced visits by commissioners in October 2023.
Committee chairperson Faith Muthambi has now given the Eastern Cape Department of Health until 15 October to hand in a full report on what it had done since the commission’s findings.
The committee had heard that patients from distant rural areas end up sharing beds at St Elizabeth Hospital in Mthatha, where blood stains cover some of the floors and where after surgery, women wash in showers with green and black mould on the ceilings.
At Frere Hospital in KuGompo City, the commission found exposed electrical wires in the underground tunnel leading to the maternity ward, while the room that was used for terminations of pregnancy “completely stripped women of their dignity”, said Shuping.
Behind the hospital, where there was no fencing, there was also a shocking collection of waste materials that needed to be cleaned.
“This should not be acceptable,” said Shupin.
At Bhisho Hospital, patients had to take their own linen to the postnatal ward, while MP Nompumelelo Mhlongo said the termination-of-pregnancy room had no privacy and was filthy dirty.
“People need to be held accountable here,” added Mhlongo.
And MP Paulnita Marais told the committee that during her own oversight visits in the Sarah Baartman district, new mothers who were HIV positive were sent around to the back of clinics to collect their antiretroviral medication.
“People knew when you go to the back that you are HIV positive,” she said. “How can we still treat people like that in 2026 by stigmatising them?”
MP Dr Karl le Roux, a former rural doctor in the Eastern Cape, said patients had reported verbal and physical abuse while in labour in hospitals countrywide, and asked whether commissioners had spoken to women about their care.
The commission’s investigation into Thuthuzela Care Centres, where rape survivors are meant to receive medical, police and legal help in one place, found that only one of the seven centres visited had a security guard on site.
But deaths down …
A deputy director-general in the Eastern Cape Department of Health told the committee that maternal deaths in the province had dropped from 127 in 2024 to 85 in 2025.
He said the department had used an R897m allocation from the health Minister to buy linen and hospital beds, and had dealt with the linen shortage at Bhisho Hospital and the bed shortage at St Elizabeth Hospital.
“We are not where we would like to be, due to funding and budget constraints,” he said. “But with the resources that we have available, we continue to look at efficiency and prioritising maternal and neonatal health services.”
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