A task team from the Eastern Cape Department of Health is to present a report shortly on the staffing haemorrhage from Gqeberha’s Livingstone Hospital and the failure to fill positions in key departments, including surgery, internal medicine, radiology and ICU, where minimal replacements have been hired, reports News24.
Doctors have left the hospital in droves over the past few years, with the remaining staff complaining that the department has simply failed to replace them.
Medical practitioners said crucial departments have lost at least 30% of their doctors, leading to the surgery department warning patients in a notice in May not to expect doctors at the outpatient clinics due to a dire staff shortage.
Provincial Health Department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said that a task team, led by a chief director, had been appointed to look at issues affecting staffing and medicine availability at Livingstone and was expected to present a progress report this week.
Last month, he added, the department had announced that R141m had been allocated to fill vacancies in all tertiary and regional hospitals, including Livingstone.
The DA’s Eastern Cape health spokesperson, Jane Cowley, said district hospitals needed proper staffing and equipment to relieve pressure on tertiary facilities like Livingstone – and that the facility’s staff exodus was no accident.
The crisis was compounded by the resignations of professional and enrolled nurses, whose dwindling numbers can no longer sustain safe care.
“Burnout leads to resignations, which in turn fuels burnout, and the vicious circle accelerates. Those who remain shoulder an unbearable load while patients wait in fear and pain,” she said.
Kupelo appealed to interested parties and stakeholders to give the department a chance to deliver on its mandate.
Currently, the hospital has more than 200 doctors and specialists, he added.
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