By Hannah Zhihan Jiang

Recently the medical emergency unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital (CHBAH) was unable to provide meals to all their patients. Bafana Tshabalala, a registered nurse at the unit told Health-e News that on the worst day only 15 breakfasts were available but there were 40 patients.

“We had to pick and choose who gets the food and who doesn’t get the food. We had to choose based on who has been here the longest, meaning they are definitely hungry,” says Tshabalala who is also the Gauteng spokesperson for the Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union.

Tshabalala says the unit does not have a designated meal allocation because the number of patients in the emergency unit fluctuates, The general ward, on the other hand, had its meals reduced from supplying 40 people to 35. 

Daily Maverick reported earlier this week that contracted food supplying companies are refusing to deliver to CHBAH due to non-payment by the Gauteng Department of Health. One source says they have been struggling with dry groceries since January. 

The Gauteng Department of Health says the issue lies in over-contracting a small number of suppliers and the lack of cold storage capacity to order groceries in large quantities. The GDoH says they will review the capacity of service providers immediately. 

A chronic issue

Food shortages have been a chronic issue at CHBAH around the end of the financial year (end of February). In March 2022, the situation was at rock bottom with nurses pooling money to buy patients’ breakfast. Tshabalala says this year’s situation is still better than in 2022. 

“Last year was worse because we hit a point where we had zero meals,” says Tshabalala. “We are worried that we are headed to a situation where there won’t be food available like last year, and we would have to raise money ourselves.” 

MEC for Health and Wellness, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, says:  “There is no patient that went through a day without receiving their meals.”

But Tshabalala says the reason for relatively few patient complaints was that families were asked to provide food for their loved ones. The Acting Head of the Department of Heath Lesiba Malotana told Health-e News that CHBAH borrowed food from other hospitals during the recent long weekend. 

Less variety of food available

Zinhle Ndlozi’s father is an inpatient at CHBAH. She told Health-e News that she saw a reduction in the amount of tea and porridge on her father’s chart this week. “He is always hungry. We have to give him food.”

In addition to a reduction in quantity, patients are having less diverse meals. Tshabalala says now breakfasts only contain bread and milk, while there should be bread, milk, tea, coffee and cereal.  

Teresa Sebewu, 38, was an inpatient in the depression ward in February. During her stay, the hospital struggled to give her tea, bread and sugar. She says the hospital managed to get them two days after requested.   

“If you go out to where we stay, we live in only one room. We have no food. When you come to the hospital where you hope you get better (conditions) and they also have issues, it’s getting worse. It shows that we are losing as a country,” says Sebewu, who lives in the Johannesburg Central Business District.

“Some of these illnesses are due to not eating a well-balanced diet. And that is why the illness is exacerbated. You come to the hospital and you still get a low quantity of food. It does not make sense honestly,” says Tshabalala.

Poor contract management, allegations of corruption

Over-contracting several suppliers and non-payment by the Department of Health together caused the long-standing cash flow and delivery issues of essential goods. 

The DoH does not pre-pay the items but asks suppliers to submit invoices after the delivery, which the DoH is legally required to pay back in 30 days. In April, it was reported that the Gauteng DoH owed R4 billion to more than 42 000 service providers. The DoH says the non-payment issue cannot be resolved easily because of the non-compliance of suppliers, some of which do not provide supporting documents along with invoices. 

As suppliers overcommitted to providing multiple items for multiple departments without receiving payment in time, MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko says “they could not keep up with the demands of the facility in terms of the orders being made.”

Tshabalala believes the root cause of the chaos is the Department of Health gatekeeping contracts by giving huge contracts to suppliers that received benefits or are politically close to the department.  – Health-e News