MBOMBELA – Over the weekend of May 8 the province is going to see the beginning of a decline in the number of patients who are waiting for orthopaedic surgery.
This after about 20 orthopaedic surgeons from various provinces such as Gauteng and Limpopo, have responded positively to the call by the health department to volunteer their services to attend to the long list of orthopaedic patients at various health facilities in the province.
According to the department the surgeries will be conducted under a project called, “Orthopaedic Letsema” which will be launched on the weekend of May 8.
“This operation which is led by Rob Ferreira Hospital CEO, Ms Fridah Nyathi will try and address the huge backlog currently experienced in all provincial hospitals,” said spokesperson for the department, Mr Dumisani Malamule.
The department has further requested all CEO’s to submit their list of all patients who are awaiting the services of orthopaedic surgeons to be submitted to the CEO of Rob Ferreira Hospital, who will then consolidated and determine the total number of patients who requires the services.
“The outcomes of the project will determine whether it will be extended further or not,” Malamule said.
He further stated that the department has only four orthopaedic surgeons of which two are located at Witbank Hospital, one is at Themba Hospital and the other one at Rob Ferreira Hospital.
“The number of surgeons is not enough to treat the large number of patients who are estimated to be more than 2 000 in the whole province.
The department is busy headhunting more surgeons to come and be based permanently in the province,” concluded Malamule.
