The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mpumalanga calls on the provincial Department of Health to intensify their program of tracing, bringing back and treating the over 30 000 TB patients who are missing as they may pose a risk of infecting other members of the public.
According to the department’s own 2022/2023 Annual Report, 30 918 TB patients are missing and can’t be traced because wrong phone numbers and addresses had been captured.
As the department has taken the decision to decentralise and repurpose all TB- Hospitals in the province in a bid to curtail inefficient and wasteful expenditure of scare resources, they must also find the missing patients and reinitiate them back to treatment at their nearby health facilities to reduce the risk of infection to the public.
According to the 2022/2023 report, the four TB hospitals namely Barberton, Bongani, Standerton and Witbank will be closed due to a reduced number of in-patients and in most cases, no patients – leaving nurses frustrated without work. TB treatment will now be decentralised, which means that all screening and initiation of TB patients will be done at local clinics and district hospitals.
The department has also announced that it has embarked on a process to repurpose all the TB-Hospitals. Witbank TB Hospital is earmarked for a Centre of Excellence in Medicine, Barberton TB – Hospital earmarked as a Rehabilitation centre, and Standerton a provincial archiving centre.
We note the decentralisation process, but the risk that this might also be adding more pressure and strain on the already overburden and understaffed public healthcare facilities remains. The department must assure us that they have a plan to reduce the pressure and strain on the general hospitals and local clinics as they will now also deal with TB patients.
The DA has thus written to provincial Health MEC, Sasekani Manzini, asking what her department’s plans are to trace the 30 918 lost TB patients. She must also reveal how the department will ensure that all hospitals and clinics incorporate the protocols of specialised TB hospitals as well as upskilling the medical staff to handle complicated TB cases.