The DA has submitted a list of complaints and questions to Health Minister Joe Phaahla, the provincial Health MEC and the acting HoD, as healthcare in the Northern Cape continues to deteriorate, with surgery backlogs and poor patient safety and management at the only tertiary facility, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital, becoming a major concern.
DA MP Delmaine Christians said the growing surgery backlogs at the Kimberley hospital are having a devastating impact on the quality of life of patients and their families, citing the case of one patient, Petro Louw, who has been waiting for a double mastectomy since 2019, due to a condition known as gigantomastia, and who was sent home without her surgery being done.
“After making it to number 12 on the waiting list, Louw was hoping for a new lease on life,” Christians told OFM News.
Louw was told to be at the hospital on Friday morning for admission and pre-op blood tests, but there was no bed available so she had to sleep in the passage of the Surgical Observation Unit, with other patients also awaiting beds.
She said from Friday night until Monday afternoon she lived in the passages until she was allocated a bed.
During her stay at the hospital, there was an attempted theft of her belongings while she was asleep. Fearing for his wife’s life, her husband drove from Postmasburg so that he could lock her belongings in the car, which is where he slept every night.
Louw apparently had no food or liquids from Tuesday at 10pm (as per doctor’s orders) until Thursday morning, when she was told her surgery would have to be rescheduled due to insufficient theatre staff.
She has been scheduled to return for surgery on 14 May. “She is devastated…the thought of having to go through this whole ordeal again is also extremely distressing, as are the further financial costs and sacrifices her family will have to make,” Christians added.
She said a complaint had been submitted to the MEC and acting HoD of Health, and to Phaahla.
“I want to know why, despite the enormous surgery backlog in the Northern Cape, additional theatre nurses have still not been appointed and only four of the nine theatres at RMS are utilised. I also want to know why, despite the department having paid a private agency to tackle surgery backlogs through a surgery marathon this week, targets were not met.”
OFM News article – Health care deteriorates in Northern Cape’s only tertiary facility (Open access)
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