Civic organisations working within the Cathcart community believe that, despite the provincial health department’s explanation, Cathcart Hospital will be downgraded and not merely reclassified.
They have pointed to what they believe is a budget cut as one of the reasons they claim this is a downgrade.
But the provincial health department has firmly dismissed the budget cut accusations, stating that the Cathcart facility would actually experience a slight budget increase in goods and services.
It said the budget reflected an overall drop because a capital expenditure item that had appeared on the previous year’s budget had now been bought and the value was no longer reflected in the budget.
Vakalisa Ceshemba, the chairman of the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) in Cathcart has accused the department of lying in its media statements.
“They have already cut down the budget of the hospital,” he said in an earlier article following the department’s assertion that Cathcart Hospital would not be downgraded.
Dr Patrick Maduna, deputy director general for clinical services in the Eastern Cape health department, had said that 20 hospitals, including Cathcart, would be reclassified.
He said hospitals with fewer than 50 beds had been wrongfully classified as district hospitals in the past, but were now being correctly classified as community health centres.
Besides this classification, which would narrow down the focus for these facilities to the population of the sub-districts and not entire districts, Maduna was adamant that neither services, budgets, staffing, nor care would change.
The Treatment Action Campaign and Sanco have called for health MEC Dr Pumza Dyantyi to address the community.
Cathcart Hospital: residents want answers
They have pointed to what they believe is a budget cut as one of the reasons they claim this is a downgrade.
But the provincial health department has firmly dismissed the budget cut accusations, stating that the Cathcart facility would actually experience a slight budget increase in goods and services.
It said the budget reflected an overall drop because a capital expenditure item that had appeared on the previous year’s budget had now been bought and the value was no longer reflected in the budget.
Vakalisa Ceshemba, the chairman of the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) in Cathcart has accused the department of lying in its media statements.
“They have already cut down the budget of the hospital,” he said in an earlier article following the department’s assertion that Cathcart Hospital would not be downgraded.
Dr Patrick Maduna, deputy director general for clinical services in the Eastern Cape health department, had said that 20 hospitals, including Cathcart, would be reclassified.
He said hospitals with fewer than 50 beds had been wrongfully classified as district hospitals in the past, but were now being correctly classified as community health centres.
Besides this classification, which would narrow down the focus for these facilities to the population of the sub-districts and not entire districts, Maduna was adamant that neither services, budgets, staffing, nor care would change.
The Treatment Action Campaign and Sanco have called for health MEC Dr Pumza Dyantyi to address the community.
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