Help needed for patients on surgery waitlists

Department of health failures continue to haunt the public, especially the disadvantaged communities who do not have access to private health care.

Recently, I was shocked when I interviewed a 29-year-old woman from KwaZulu-Natal and discovered she has been on the hip surgery waiting list for almost two years.

The waiting has affected her so badly that she even lost her job. She is unable to walk without the assistance of the walking device.

The woman cannot look after her two children and she will be in pain for another year as she has been scheduled for surgery next May.

She is not the only person who is suffering because the department fails to address the surgery backlogs.

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Here, we are talking about patients who have many complications and need surgeries for heart, hip and other issues.

I remember in 2021, when I was working for the Pelo Foundation, an organisation founded by doctors that offers free heart surgeries to children suffering from congenital heart disease (CHD).

CHD is a disease whereby a baby is born with a fault in their heart and according to the experts, if the disease remains untreated the baby could die.

I have witnessed families going through hard times as their children were kept on the heart surgery waiting list.

Be that as it may, what brought relief was that the foundation was assisting some of the children, who were on the waiting list at government hospitals.

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In a short time, we assisted 17 children with free life-saving surgeries that cost about R500 000 each.

I am still proud to have played a role in bringing smiles to different families in the Eastern Cape, where the patients came from.

According to statistics, 11 000 babies a year in South Africa are born with CHD.

When I left the foundation in 2022, I realised it was going to be hard to assist more children.

Then an idea came that I must use my pen to tell the world that as a country, we have challenge assisting poor children.

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The first step I took was to contact the department of health to get the number of those patients on the waiting list. But the authorities did not even bother to respond. I followed up with a phone call, but to no avail.

The reason why I needed the figures was to write an article that was going to touch the hearts of the individuals and organisations, such as the Pelo Foundation, so that they might assist some of the children.

I understand the department may be under-resourced and failing to up its game in terms of speeding up surgeries, but it must be transparent so patients can get help from other institutions.

Much as the authorities do not want to admit that they are struggling when it comes to assisting patients with surgeries, I believe that individuals and organisations should come forward and offer to help those poor people who are on the waiting list for surgeries.

To my surprise, it seems we have normalised this thing of being on waiting lists.

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Since I have been a journalist, I have written many news articles in which health advocacy groups complained about department of health blunders, such as medical negligence and other shortcomings.

But none of them complained about the long waiting list for surgeries, which is a serious concern among indigent communities, who rely on public health facilities.