According to Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu, in reply to questions from Democratic Alliance (DA) Member of the Provincial Legislature, Jack Bloom, who is also the party’s Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, the patient numbers at the casualty department of the hospital had septupled in the past three years.
Mahlangu said the hospital had seen a phenomenal growth of patient numbers from 820 in 2012 to 4 399 in 2015, from January to September, and attributed the growth to a number of factors.
The casualty patients at the hospital had risen from 820 in 2012 to 1 808 in 2013 and 3 224 in 2014, while the current number for this year from January to September, had already grown to 4 399.
This means that casualty cases have gone up more than seven times in the last three years – from an average of 68 patients per month in 2012 to 489 patients per month this year, Mahlangu said.
According to her, the increases have been compounded by the factors of growth of the user population in the nearby areas, the burden of disease and particularly HIV/Aids; the social determinants of health, particularly motor vehicle accidents, alcohol and drug abuse-related injuries and stabbings.
She said the size of the casualty facility was currently not meeting the demand and that a ‘short stay’ area has been established with 12 beds, although she denied allegations of patients sleeping on the floor.
Mahlangu said a plan was already being considered to build an extra two 24-bed wards at the hospital and said this may be in the ‘planning stage’ but will be effected to ease the burden.
Bloom said as much as he appreciated Mahlangu’s response, it showed the scale of the problem but contained no urgency in addressing the huge increase in casualty cases in the near future.
The department is notoriously slow in building anything on time or within budget, Bloom charged, and suggested the department, in the short-term, should pay private hospitals to look after overflow patients at Edenvale Hospital.
He urged the authorities to speed up the building of the new wards which were urgently and desperately needed. Re-opening the Kempton Park Hospital would also assist in providing decent care to people in this rapidly expanding area, Bloom added.
