Empangeni hospital opens oncology clinic

LOCAL cancer patients, particularly women and children, can breathe a sigh of relief following the opening of an oncology clinic at Lower Umfolozi Regional War Memorial Hospital in Empangeni.

A short term solution to the oncology crisis in the province, the Department of Health partnered with the private sector to open the clinic, which began operating this month.

Being a mother-and-child hospital, the oncology clinic will deal with cancers affecting children and gynaecological cancers affecting women.

‘Previously we were working on a booking system and patients would be seen by one of our consultants.

‘We could only see 10 patients a day but the service we were providing to the patients was in preparation for referral to Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban because the actual chemotherapy and radiotherapy was done there because we had no machines or the drugs,’ the hospital’s CEO Nqobile Mkhwanazi said.

The hospital has partnered with Richards Bay Medical Institute (RBMI) and Joint Medical Holding (JMH) on the clinic, which is open on Mondays and Wednesdays.

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‘There was a call to partner with the private sector because they have oncologists and they have everything needed for these services to be provided.

‘There was an agreement between the Department of Health and private sector that at Lower uMfolozi and Ngwelezana we can start with a short term plan of seeing these patients with assistance of oncologists from the private sector.

‘We partnered with two specialists, Prof Jordaan and Prof Abrahams. Instead of receiving patients from other hospitals and referring them to Durban, they can now come to us and they are screened, given chemo- and radiotherapy, whatever they need.

‘It is quite exciting for us and it is a breakthrough for the department,’ Mkhwanazi said.

She further encouraged patients to undergo regular screenings and pap smears, for early detection of cancer.

‘This helps with prompt interventions because this is a silent killer and if a person presents very late, there are limitations with the interventions they can receive,’ Mkhwanazi said.

The opening of the clinic follows the recent report by the South African Human Rights Commission’s which found that the Department of Health in the province failed to provide access to adequate oncology services to patients and also ‘violated rights to human dignity and life of affected patients’.

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