DOGS roaming freely through wards, vermin infesting hospital kitchens and patients taken to hospitals in wheel-barrows.
This is healthcare in rural Eastern Cape – and it has reached rock-bottom.
For two months earlier this year the Daily Dispatch toured five districts and visited more than 32 hospitals and clinics.
Today, concerned healthcare workers will march to Gqobana’s offices to protest against working conditions and to emphasise the perilous state of health in the Eastern Cape.
Mark Heywood, executive director of Section 27, said in an interview earlier this year that the Eastern Cape was possibly the most dysfunctional, corrupt and disorganised healthcare service of any province in the country.
“We have been contacted by numerous doctors, nurses, patients and other types of healthcare workers basically coming to us pleading ‘Can you help us get drugs into our facilities; can you help us get the proper number of healthcare workers,’ etcetera,” said Heywood.
COPE spokesman on health, Nkosinathi Kuluta, chimed in: “We have witnessed the fast deterioration of health services in the far flung areas of the Eastern Cape since time immemorial and it worsened … it has reached now a crisis situation.”
An interview with provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo giving his response is published separately. — vuyiswav@dispatch.co.za / sinom@dispatch.co.za
Health system hits rock-bottom
This is healthcare in rural Eastern Cape – and it has reached rock-bottom.
For two months earlier this year the Daily Dispatch toured five districts and visited more than 32 hospitals and clinics.
Today, concerned healthcare workers will march to Gqobana’s offices to protest against working conditions and to emphasise the perilous state of health in the Eastern Cape.
Mark Heywood, executive director of Section 27, said in an interview earlier this year that the Eastern Cape was possibly the most dysfunctional, corrupt and disorganised healthcare service of any province in the country.
“We have been contacted by numerous doctors, nurses, patients and other types of healthcare workers basically coming to us pleading ‘Can you help us get drugs into our facilities; can you help us get the proper number of healthcare workers,’ etcetera,” said Heywood.
COPE spokesman on health, Nkosinathi Kuluta, chimed in: “We have witnessed the fast deterioration of health services in the far flung areas of the Eastern Cape since time immemorial and it worsened … it has reached now a crisis situation.”
An interview with provincial health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo giving his response is published separately. — vuyiswav@dispatch.co.za / sinom@dispatch.co.za
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