Parliament's portfolio committee on health says it is unhappy with the state of Dora Nginza Hospital in the Eastern Cape.
This after it embarked on a three-day oversight programme at the facility and Uitenhage hospital in the Nelson Mandela metropolitan municipality on Friday.
The committee was unhappy about the state of the casualty department at Dora Nginza, where patients waited for hours to see doctors, and the mortuary. It also expressed its unhappiness about dirty blankets and shortages of linen and generally poor maintenance.
Chairperson of the committee Dr Kenneth Jacobs said the hospital had more officials than nurses and doctors. “This hospital needs more doctors and nurses, and it must always have adequate capacity to manage 100 admissions that may come from a natural disaster,” he said, with committee members adding that the hospital was a mess.
Jacobs called on the provincial and national departments of health to assist the facility One way was to place it under administration, he said. He urged the hospital’s CEO and management team to come up with an effective turnaround strategy.
The committee also heard that the hospital and other healthcare centres in the Eastern Cape operate with limited budgets as a result of accruals and medicolegal claims which reduce their budgets every year.
A provincial health official painted a bleak picture, saying a large percentage of hospital budgets were lost due to medicolegal claims he likened to state capture.
Jacobs and the committee asked the official to provide them with documents indicating this trend, saying unscrupulous lawyers must be exposed.
On Saturday the committee will visit the Livingstone and Port Elizabeth provincial hospitals.
TimesLIVE
Eastern Cape hospital 'in a mess', says parliamentary committee
Image: 123RF/Samsonovs
Parliament's portfolio committee on health says it is unhappy with the state of Dora Nginza Hospital in the Eastern Cape.
This after it embarked on a three-day oversight programme at the facility and Uitenhage hospital in the Nelson Mandela metropolitan municipality on Friday.
The committee was unhappy about the state of the casualty department at Dora Nginza, where patients waited for hours to see doctors, and the mortuary. It also expressed its unhappiness about dirty blankets and shortages of linen and generally poor maintenance.
Chairperson of the committee Dr Kenneth Jacobs said the hospital had more officials than nurses and doctors. “This hospital needs more doctors and nurses, and it must always have adequate capacity to manage 100 admissions that may come from a natural disaster,” he said, with committee members adding that the hospital was a mess.
Jacobs called on the provincial and national departments of health to assist the facility One way was to place it under administration, he said. He urged the hospital’s CEO and management team to come up with an effective turnaround strategy.
The committee also heard that the hospital and other healthcare centres in the Eastern Cape operate with limited budgets as a result of accruals and medicolegal claims which reduce their budgets every year.
A provincial health official painted a bleak picture, saying a large percentage of hospital budgets were lost due to medicolegal claims he likened to state capture.
Jacobs and the committee asked the official to provide them with documents indicating this trend, saying unscrupulous lawyers must be exposed.
On Saturday the committee will visit the Livingstone and Port Elizabeth provincial hospitals.
TimesLIVE
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