DA barred from visiting Addington Hospital

FOLLOWING complaints of sick patients, the elderly and children being forced to walk up 14 storeys at Addington Hospital due to the lifts being out of order, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in KZN went to check what was going on on Thursday, 6 February. However, the delegation from the DA was barred from entering the hospital.

Rishigen Viranna, DA MPL, said that despite following procedure and requesting permission for the visit, they were not given authorisation to enter the hospital to assess the lift crisis.

Viranna said millions of Rands had been spent repairing the lifts over the last few years, however they were still not working. He claimed that almost R26 million was allocated to upgrade or replace the lifts.

ALSO READ: MEC blames aging infrastructure for Addington Hospital’s woes

Following the barring from doing the oversight visit, he said the DA would be notifying the Chairperson of the Health portfolio committee and would demand that the matter be placed on the agenda for the next committee meeting. He said the DA would also call for a portfolio committee oversight at the facility.

Responding to this, Simelane-Zulu said she had been working on infrastructural improvements at the hospital and that Addington had infrastructural challenges due to its age, as well as its location directly along the coast. She said there were five functional lifts at the hospital, two for passengers and patients, two service lifts for the transportation of waste, and another one for food.

Commenting on the DA’s attempted visit to the facility, Simelane-Zulu said the party was aware of the processes which needed to be followed when seeking to visit healthcare facilities, and oversight visits by members of provincial legislature were facilitated by the portfolio committee through the chairperson of that committee. She said requests for oversight visits were not tantamount to approval.

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