Tambo Memorial Hospital is rotting away, DA calls for full inspection

Tambo Memorial Hospital has been described as nothing but a mere shadow of its former self.

The DA’s oversight visit findings, safety inspections and the public outcry suggested the facility had for many years been left to go to rack and ruin by authorities.

The state of the healthcare facility has again prompted the DA to call upon the provincial health department and the metro to intervene, following the party’s recent inspection and other several previous visits.
The DA Shadow Minister of Health, Michele Clarke, called on the municipality to send out its city planning department to conduct a full compliance inspection to check whether the facility complies with the City’s building regulations and by-laws.

In a press release recently, Clarke said five years ago, the province embarked on a project to replace the hospital, but the project never got off the ground due to financial constraints.

“The plans were passed, however, to date, the project never came to fruition due to funding constraints,” explained Clarke.

The statement was issued a week after Clarke and her deputy, Haseena Ismail, conducted an oversight visit to the hospital, where they found a substantial number of shortcomings requiring urgent attention from the relevant authorities.

Clarke stated that two assessments have suggested the hospital’s ‘poorly’ maintained infrastructure is in a state of disrepair and is not fit for human habitation.

This publication has, for years, been inundated with patients’ complaints related to the unfavourable conditions of the hospital. These complaints range from unhygienic conditions to lack of facilities in the wards, decaying structures, delayed and poor service delivery, rude staff and uncaring management.

Challenges
Here are the main challenges the hospital is facing as per the DA findings:

• Outdated staff structure and a decrease in the services offered due to budget constraints.
• Poor maintenance of building infrastructure and two assessments conducted have concluded that the hospital is not fit for human habitation.
• Underwater drainage systems are leaking, which cause water to remain stagnant, resulting in horrific smells.
• Shortages of doctors with only one doctor on call with a hospital that has a casualty that sees around 1 700 patients per month.
• Delays in medical waste removals due to contractors not being paid on time.
• Patients need to bring their own linen, as the laundry appointed by the province simply does not deliver the services needed.
• Shortages of critical drugs for schedule five upwards.
• A surgical backlog of 60%.
• No high-care unit.
• A shortage of skilled nurses within the system, with the hospital needing an additional 200 nursing posts to meet demand.

Multi-million rand project for Tambo Hospital renovation
Although the provincial health department has not yet responded to our request for information and comment on the said state of the hospital, there are unconfirmed reports that the government has put aside a substantial amount of money to fund the proposed project to refurbish Tambo Memorial Hospital.

However, the said proposed plan has already been met with criticism from some interested parties, including local leaders who have questioned the department’s decision to renovate the hospital building, saying the ‘budgeted’ money is almost enough to build a new hospital to replace the existing crumbling infrastructure.

A few years ago, when one of the hospital facilities (storeroom) was gutted by a fire, the former MEC told journalists the department was considering building a new hospital to replace the old facility instead of focusing on the costly renovations.

The MMC stated the ageing building had been increasingly difficult to put up with, saying the original cost estimates for revamping the facility would cost more or less the amount of building a new facility.
Now, the question is: What has informed the decision to upgrade, instead of building a new hospital?

Norms and standards
Meanwhile, the DA shadow minister said her party cannot allow public facilities to disintegrate without proper interventions, adding healthcare is one of the most important services in the country.

“To provide quality healthcare services to communities and ensure public health workers’ morale remains high, there is a need to ensure health spaces remain compliant and clean and adhere to the department’s norms and standards.

“The Department of Health must ensure facilities are provided with the adequate resources to secure timeous infrastructural repairs,” said Clarke.

Also Read: How to lodge a complaint/compliment at Tambo Memorial

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