East Cape hospital management ‘rudderless’

Unions from across the province have accused hospital managers of being ill-equipped to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and having no clear strategy on how to distribute personal protective equipment (PPE).

This follows ongoing protests at hospitals throughout the Eastern Cape in recent weeks over PPEs despite health superintendent-general Dr Thobile Mbengashe consistently saying there was enough PPE in the province.

On Monday night, the Eastern Cape premier’s spokesperson, Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha, said 191 health workers in the public and private sector were infected with Covid-19.

This included 71  cases from Nelson Mandela Bay and 63 from the Buffalo City municipality. 

Sicwetsha also said the province was ramping   up the provision of personal protective equipment.  

On Saturday, the Daily Dispatch reported that several health workers, including senior doctors, were no longer going to work to treat patients, whether they were infected with coronavirus or not.

According to the report, people with chronic conditions like cancer were being turned away from some hospitals because doctors were sitting at home.

On Monday, Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) provincial secretary Khaya Sodidi said health workers around the province were staying away from work because they had been exposed to patients with Covid-19 and were awaiting their results.

“We’ve consistently reported this issue to management but we found some management told staff to continue reporting to work while they waited for their results. 

“These people work with members of the community every day and should they be positive and not know it yet, it will spread,” he said.

On the issue of PPE, Sodidi said they had several meetings with officials from the department of health, and  on numerous occasions were able to prove that PPE was there.

“The problem was that the PPE was being locked away in storerooms, being conserved for cases of emergencies, which resulted in nurses and doctors downing tools,” Sodidi said.

Nehawu provincial secretary  Miki Jaceni said hospital management at public institutions lacked leadership and in some hospitals management did not have a clear strategy on distributing PPE.

“There’s a problem with hospital management hiding infected patients because they know unions will demand PPE for their members and they deem this exercise costly,” Jaceni said.

Jaceni said there was also a human resources issue and there was not enough staff to watch over quarantine sites.

During one of the protests at the Uitenhage Provincial Hospital,  Nehawu alleged to have discovered boxes of PPE piled up in one of the storerooms.

“PPE is there to protect health workers. If there are any instances found where PPE is withheld from workers, there will be consequences,” department of health spokesperson Siyanda Manana   said.

Covid-19 infections among health workers in other areas of the Eastern Cape are 28 from the OR Tambo district, 14 from Amathole,  eight from Chris Hani,  three from Sarah Baartman, two from Joe Gqabi and two from Alfred Nzo. 

Speaking on PPE, Sicwetsha said to protect its workers, the department had procured aprons, biohazard bags, boot covers, goggles, face shields and visors, among other things.

“To protect staff, patients and the public from infections, the provincial government is working with its social partners to accelerate prevention of infections, and to complete construction of field hospitals and renovations of health facilities in public hospitals to be ready for patients who may need hospitalisation as a result of Covid-19 infections.

“Given the negative impact of this pandemic, including the national lockdown induced by the pandemic, there are a number of provincial government departments and municipalities contributing through their programmes in support of the health intervention to curb the spread of this virus,” Sicwetsha said.

In the public interest, most of our coronavirus news isn’t behind our paywall, and is free to read. To support our mission of delivering award-winning, independent local news, subscribe from as little as R45 per month by clicking here.