Today, the DA conducted an oversight inspection to the Pelonomi Regional Hospital in Bloemfontein. Our visit follows the strike action at the facility last month in protest to the severe staff shortages at the maternity ward.
There are numerous issues facing the hospital, including the lack of adequate equipment, long waiting times, and poor infrastructure. Despite intervention from the Provincial Health Department, many of the problems which compromise the delivery of quality healthcare to the people, continue.
This is a clear indication that the National Health Insurance (NHI), which the ANC claims will sort out the numerous crises facing health care, will not work and will only compromise health care in South Africa even more.
Essentially NHI seeks to nationalise health care. One simply needs to look at Eskom and Transnet as examples of how nationalising strategic services are compromised by the ANC’s corruption, mismanagement and lack of political will.
Pelonomi Hospital is marred by serious challenges which the NHI cannot fix. Following the shutdown of the maternity ward last month, the Free State Department of Health committed to hiring 13 more nurses, despite it having 91 vacancies.
Nurses at the hospital, however, confirmed to the DA that only 8 new nurses have reported for duty despite the Department’s commitment that 13 additional nurses would be hired. Some staff on duty also expressed concerns about the persistent shortages in medical equipment and the long period of time the hospital has to wait to replace broken equipment.
In 2012, construction started to extend the maternity ward, however, the construction was never completed which has had a massive impact on services in the ward.
The DA also visited Pelonomi Hospital’s orthopaedic ward which has a long waiting period for operations as there are only 2 functional operating theatres. The other four operating theatres has not been functional for the past six years. This is because the brand new anaesthetic machines which were bought in 2014 had mechanical issues. The service provider never fixed the anaesthetic machines, all this whilst countless orthopaedic patients require surgery.
The DA found a number of orthopaedic sleeping on chairs as they wait to be operated on. This treatment borders on inhumane treatment. In certain instances, patients wait for weeks on end without knowing when their operation will take place.
The DA is also very concerned about the state of infrastructure at the hospital as the floors and walls are in a poor state. We also found that due to the spatial constraints at the hospital some patients are sleeping in a storage room, whilst the emergency escape area is used for storage.
The Pelonomi Regional Hospital is yet another example of how the ANC government treats poor and sick South Africans with disdain. The poor have no other alternative but to access public healthcare services and they are often subjected to horrendous service and substandard medical treatment.
Despite the extensive lip service the ANC government has paid to the NHI, it will not improve health services to the poor. The poor services and dilapidated infrastructure at Pelonomi Hospital is indicative of how unrealistic the NHI truly is. It is merely an expensive solution to cover up the ANC’s poor track record in providing quality public health services to South Africans.
The DA, with Our Health Plan, is the only party that has a proven record of delivering quality public health services to its citizens. The DA-governed Western Cape provides better health care than any other province in South Africa and we will continue to fight to ensure that every South African is afforded the right to access dignified health care services.