Gauteng health woes continue despite MEC assurances
In an open letter sent to Papo’s office yesterday SECTION27 and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) highlighted a number of examples of critical breakdowns in the past weeks:
– Thokoza Phenduka clinic in Ekhuruleni had no antiretrovirals last week. Patients reporting to the clinic were given prescriptions instead of medicines and told to buy their ARVs at a pharmacy in Alberton.
– Last week, Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital was out of Simvastatin (Zocor), a medicine that is critical for cholesterol lowering and is used in patients at risk of stroke and heart attack. The drug later became available.
– Alcohol disinfectant, a basic necessity for infection control, was unavailable in many Chris Hani wards.
– A four-hour power failure at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital this week nearly resulted in a catastrophe when back-up generators serving the main intensive care unit did not function. Doctors had to prepare for manual ventilation as the batteries for the ventilators reached critically low levels.
– TAC and SECTION27 have first-hand testimony from healthcare professionals at a large district hospital that the Gauteng health department’s refusal to pay overtime due to irregularities in overtime claims, has led to staff shortages and has directly resulted in patient deaths.
A senior doctor at Helen Joseph told Health-e that in his response Papo had failed to highlight improvements at primary, secondary or tertiary facilities. ‘The improvements are taking place at the flagship institutes that attract attention through the louder voives of academia. Places like Tembisa, Leratong, Sebokeng Natalspruit etc are given scant regard. It is in these places that the real horrors are encountered where basic investigations and tests remain a challenge. These smaller hospitals look after the bulk of patients in Gauteng, as the larger hospitals care for the more complicated patients and barriers do exist to gain admission into these hospitals,’ said the doctor who asked to remain anonymous.
He said that at Helen Joseph still ran out of stationery on a weekly basis. ‘We are pooling money together to buy a copier for our outpatients clinics. Security remains a major challenge. The ICU remains understaffed in terms of ICU trained nurses, so the beds are underutilised. Bed occupancy is over 90 per cent consistently, and staffare encouraged to prematurely discharge patients. The CT scanner is currently not working. Medication is always running out especially at the pharmacy for outpatients. Patients invariably do not receive all their medication on a monthly basis, and the drugs shortages vary week by week. The hospital also has very little linen, pillows and pyjamas for patients,’ he said.
SECTION27 and TAC listed the numerous occasions that they had unsuccessfully attempted to raise issues revealed in its joint report ‘Monitoring our Health: an analysis of the breakdown of health care services in selected Gauteng facilities’. Papo had responded to the report accusing the organisations of failing to engage with him.
‘We want to work with you to fix the health system. So do health care workers and people who depend on the facilities you are responsible for. But this requires honesty, transparency and accountability,’ SECTION27’s Mark Heywood and TAC’s Nonkosi Khumalo said in the letter.
They called on Papo to convene a Provincial health consultative council, a body that is legally required by the National Health Act to ‘promote and facilitate interaction, communication and the sharing of information on provincial health issues’.
‘As MEC you are required by law to establish such a forum and convene it at least once a year. This body is far more suitable as a platform for engagement, accountability and joint action,’ they said.
TAC and SECTION27 explained that they try to speak for users of the health system and invited Papo to accompany them on a visit. ‘We are trying to tell you what they tell us. We will always be available for discussion and engagement. However, it is clear that we have very different experiences of the public health sector. We therefore invite you to take a glimpse into the public health system as seen by patients and doctors by joining members of the TAC and visiting facilities, not officially as the MEC but incognito, as an ordinary member of the public. That way you will observe how patients really experience the health care system,’ the letter said.
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