The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to Mpumalanga Premier, Refilwe Mtsweni-Tsipane, asking her to intervene immediately to fix the bad state of the only two provincial tertiary hospitals. (View letter here).
The DA conducted an oversight at both the Rob Ferreira and Witbank tertiary hospitals to engage and witness the challenges facing the healthcare professionals. It was evident that these hospitals were in dire need.
We encountered the following challenges:
• Currently, Rob Ferreira hospital cannot attend to patients who suffer heart attacks. They refer them to the Steve Biko hospital in Gauteng.
• Similarly, Witbank hospital has a very high maternal mortality rate of 141 per 100 000 due to the shortage of experienced specialists employed.
• Both Rob Ferreira and Witbank are plagued by high vacancy rates of 11% and 37% respectively. Vacant positions for especially nursing staff and specialists urgently need to be filled.
• Both hospitals are not functioning as tertiary hospitals due to the health department not being able to retain the services of specialists. Without specialists, these hospitals cannot function as teaching hospitals.
• Staff shortages have a knock-on effect as it burdens the current staff. It is not suprising that cases of litigation against these two hospitals are currently extremely high.
• Currently, both hospitals are in dire need of maintenance, but there is no political will from provincial government to take a stand and ensure these hospitals are assisted.
It is disheartening to hear the pleas from the various healthcare professionals from these hospitals who face a wrath from patients and their families on a daily basis. Their hands are tied as provincial government sits back and allows these two hospitals to decline.
In her response to the DA’s statement in the Mpumalanga Legislature, provincial health MEC, Sasekani Manzini, denied any problems at Rob Ferreira and Witbank Hospital. She stated categorically that all specialist services are available at both these hospitals, but our oversight proved the complete opposite.
The Premier must now intervene to take political accountability for the MEC’s inadequacies with regards to the full functioning of both Rob Ferreira and Witbank hospitals and to see that these challenges are resolved.