Warrenton Hospital is a study in neglect, with broken toilets, leaking pipes and a chronic shortage of staff.

The Northern Cape hospital’€™s lone doctor, who was appointed late last year, works weekdays from 8am to 4pm. But when Health-e visits, he has taken two months’€™ leave and the hospital has to rely on three private doctors who are on call.

The theatre is closed. There are no blankets or pyjamas for patients. The generator doesn’€™t work. The washing machine is broken. The sterilising machine is out of order.

The connections for the piped oxygen leak badly and the equipment for foetal monitoring is obsolete.

Drains are blocked and containers of stinking water stand under most leaking sinks. Three of the six patients’€™ toilets cannot flush.

The 30-bed hospital, a mere 75km from the province’€™s capital of Kimberley, limps along on the sweat of nine professional nurses assisted by 14 auxiliary nurses.

The nurses work 12-hour shifts, day and night, and only get every second weekend off.

‘€œAt night and on your off-days, you are also on call without pay,’€ says Sister Suzanna Marais, who runs both the maternity and female medical wards.

In maternity, Marais is assisted by one nurse. If a maternity patient has to be transferred to Kimberley Hospital, by law she has to be accompanied by a midwife. This means  leaving a single nurse behind in the ward.

‘€œThe moral of the story is: never get sick. I haven’€™t been on leave for about two years,’€ says Marais, who has worked at the hospital for the past 10 years.

But local patients still stream to the small hospital, which admits over 300 patients a month, sees some 270 outpatients and delivers about 45 babies.

‘€œOver the weekend, we are overwhelmed,’€ says Sister Gail Davids. ‘€œIt’€™s stabbings mostly, nothing fancy like gunshots! And poisoning, people drinking organophosphates that they use on the farms or youngsters drinking paraffin to try and kill themselves.

‘€œThere are lots of teen pregnancies too. It really is a problem here. Warrenton is a depressing place. There are no social activities, high unemployment and lots of drinking.’€

‘€œHIV/AIDS is also cutting into people’€™s health, with about 80% of medical admissions being HIV-related. The hospital offers HIV and CD4 tests but no antiretrovirals,’€ says Lily Moncho, who has worked as an HIV/AIDS counsellor for over six years on a R1000 stipend.

The housekeeper was suspended two years ago, and now one person makes patients’€™ food in a kitchen without hot water.

‘€œWe are next to the national road to Johannesburg. We should be uplifted. When there are accidents, all we can do is stabilise patients and send them to Kimberley,’€ says Davids.

‘€œA few years ago, there was a bus accident one night and we really struggled. There was one sister at the accident scene and another one remained at the hospital.’€