Private healthcare seems to be ailing, too

Covid-19 has revealed the glaring deficiences in our entire healthcare system – that it is unreliable.

Strange things happen, too. Both the private and public health sectors are not only overstretched in terms of demand for their resources, but they are going through a tough test about whether they are able to deliver the goods.

We are seeing the public sector doing a more commendable job compared to the drama queens of our private healthcare providers in handling the pandemic.

The cases of Life Healthcare Group facilities in the Eastern Cape are a cause for concern. The number of Covid-19 cases is escalating at St Mary’s and St Dominic private hospitals at an alarming rate. But the management, especially at St Mary’s in Mthatha, has become more and more arrogant.

The CEO ran away and deliberately failed to pitch up to account for the deplorable service given to Covid-19 patients at the hospital.

The hospital refused to meet members of the portfolio committee on health and the select committee on health and social services who came to check on the Covid-19 situation there. This amid reports that positive and negative patients were being mixed in one ward.

Nurses told media there is complete disregard for healthcare protocols at the hospital and that they were at a greater risk.

The parliamentarians were shunned by management there this week. They were made to wait outside unattended. They even showed disrespect to the provincial health MEC Sindiswa Gomba and her delegation by locking them out. All this despite the fact that prior notices were given about the visits and are confirmed.

It is clear the private health sector is not coping with the pandemic. What else can you say about their mediocrity? The sector has been exposed – they’re not better than the public sector, as they claim to be.

The closure earlier of St Augustine’s in Durban due to uncontrollable virus infections, shows that this problem is widespread in private healthcare. Ironically, St Mary’s advertised itself as providing excellent healthcare. Yet this week they demonstrated that they do not.

A man who answered the phone there on Tuesday was a disgrace to the entire healthcare system, the medical profession and the noble duty of putting lives above all else. If he could act in such unprofessional manner towards media that needed information about what was happening there, how much more would he do towards ordinary members of the public?

His behaviour not only breached the old private business principle of customer first or the customer is always right. It was as if he was taken straight from the Mthatha streets and put on the switchboard. He refused to identify himself nor pass on messages. He, instead, rudely slammed down the phone.

But what can you expect from a worker managed by a CEO who runs away and refuses to account to parliament and the provincial government for wrongdoings under his watch?

We can only hope Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, chair of the health portfolio committee, will put his foot down and demand answers about St Mary’s when the committee meets Life Healthcare bosses next week.

Eric Naki.

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