Covid laying bare SA’s creaking healthcare system

Covid has laid bare many underlying issues about SA’s creaking healthcare system and the spike in infections with every wave has been a severe test for the system since the height of the HIV pandemic in the early 2000s.

Many hospitals and clinics cannot deliver primary care to outlying communities, with a failure in governance, management and a severe shortage of healthcare workers making the pandemic the system’s biggest nightmare.

According to the portfolio committee on health’s acting chair, Tshilidzi Munyai, scientific analysis and research have indicated that a fourth wave is inevitable and “South Africa should at least be combat ready”.

“One of the critical issues is that Tembisa is a hospital that was built in 1972 and it still has stone-age infrastructure,” he said during an oversight visit to the Tembisa Hospital.

“We’ve been to the maternity, vaccination and others wards and for a hospital which services people as far as Diepsloot and three metros (Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg) the demand outstrips the supply.”

“The government must urgently address the infrastructure needed, not only at Tembisa Hospital, but countrywide at hospitals such as Mahatma Gandhi in Durban,” he said.

“We are here to look at service delivery within the hospital, to know if there is quality health care in our hospitals.”

Munyai said there were many challenges that required more practical and urgent attention, such as vaccinations and shortage of staff, unlike long-term issues such as infrastructure.

“With regard to vaccinations, the hospital vaccinates about 200 people per day, but we are not satisfied with that number because we want the rest of the population to be able to get their vaccines,” Munyai said.

“It is our national duty and moral obligation that all the population have access to vaccinations. Failure to have that access it will create a major problem in our country.”

Tembisa Hospital CEO Dr Ashley Mthunzi said although they have vaccinated at least 9 000 people so far, their daily goal needs to increase to more than 200, as they push public health education and send the correct message about vaccinations to the community.

Mthunzi also said while they were not affected by the recent unrest in Gauteng, they had seen an influx of patients due to the violence. That highlighted a major shortage of healthcare workers in the system.

“The burden of diseases has not taken a backseat but our staff members were inundated and overwhelmed to say the least,” he said.

“We are the only public hospital on the R21 that is servicing three metros and the nursing needs have to be those patients who need intensive care,” he said.

Mthunzi said the pressure came mostly because they were a tertiary hospital and did not have a regional or district hospital to reduce the load of patients when needed.

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za