Oversight visit to South Rand Hospital exposes many issues

A DELEGATION from the Democratic Alliance (DA) conducted an oversight visit of the South Rand Hospital on May 16.

The delegation consisted of the DA’s Shadow MEC for Health Jack Bloom, MPL Dr Neil Campbell, Ward 56 Cllr Michael Crichton and Ward 57 Cllr Faeeza Chame. The necessity of the visit arose from the fact that the DA’s public representatives have been inundated with complaints from patients that utilise the services at that hospital.

Upon entering the hospital, the delegation was immediately shocked by the length of the queues as some of the patients were even forced to stand.

They then questioned a few patients on their general experiences at that hospital and the following concerns emerged:

• It can take up to two hours for a patient to get a file

• The average waiting time to see a doctor is about 40 minutes

• It usually takes up to two hours for a patient to receive their medication from the pharmacy

• The hospital still has a manual filing system and often patients’ files get lost.

The delegation then went on a tour through the hospital and was shocked to see how badly the building is in need of maintenance. One example was that the male toilets on the floor did not have toilet seats, while the female toilets had a blocked basin. The toilets also appeared to not have toilet paper.

However, the management explained that the nurses keep the toilet paper because often the toilet rolls are stolen by the patients. Their explanation for the toilets with missing seats and the blocked basin is that the Provincial Department of Infrastructure Development is responsible for attending to those issues.

After engaging the hospital’s management, other concerns included the fact that the hospital has 68 staff vacancies, one of the old crèches was meant to be converted into a psyche ward but this has not happened yet, the hospital’s ultra-violet lights do not work, the hospital has still not digitalised its filing system after the MEC promised to make that happen three years ago, and all new construction work at that hospital has been frozen.

Cllr Crichton said, “I’m very pleased to have been a part of this delegation today as it has given me a very real picture of what is happening at this hospital. My colleagues in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, Jack Bloom and Neil Campbell, will continue to seek answers from the Gauteng Provincial Government, and we will have another oversight visit in the future. We won’t stop fighting for services to improve at this hospital.”

South Rand Hospital was given a right to reply on these concerns on May 31 but they haven’t responded.

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