KWAZULU-NATAL Health MEC Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo says he is concerned that complaints made in the media about a few isolated incidents at hospitals and clinics may erode public confidence in government hospitals and clinics, which serve up to 90 per cent of the population, who are not on medical aid.
According to Departmental policy, if a complainant is still not satisfied about how their complaint is being dealt with, they may escalate it to the office of the provincial health Ombudsperson, Mboneni Bhekiswayo, based at head office in Pietermaritzburg, who will investigate their claims.
“We are urging people who may have a grievance after attending a hospital or clinic not to leave the institution without lodging a formal complaint. Registering a complaint with the hospital Public Relations Officer, office of the CEO or Operations Manager (in the case of clinics) is the only way to ensure remedial action and/or the application of consequence management for wrongdoers, who are in the minority,” he said.
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“If you have a complaint and your first port of call is the PRO, we will surely attend to it. Even those complaints that go to the media, they still come back to us to sort out. Therefore, if you start with the PRO, we are saved the negative publicity because such publicity about a health institution that serves multitudes of our people can easily scare other citizens through something that could have been attended to. We are not saying we are perfect, but everyday we wake up to do our best and solve problems that may arise. So, our appeal to the public is, make use of all our PROs where we have them,” he said.
Dhlomo’s plea comes after the Department held a workshop for the Public Relations Officers in Durban on Friday. The workshop was part of ongoing efforts to make the PROs more receptive, visible and helpful to the public, in order to improve client experience and satisfaction.
“It was a good decision to recognise and elevate the role of PROs in our hospitals. Currently, we have over 80 public hospitals in our province and 80 PROs, and about 10 Community Health Centres (CHCs), with their own PROs. Over the years, we have conducted workshops, empowering them and giving them the idea that they are the face of these health facilities. The image of these institutions. We are really delighted with the experience that they have gained over time, and during this past week. We had a meeting with them, inculcating their responsibilities in their hospitals,” concluded Dhlomo.
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