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'This is no way to treat our people'

on a mission: Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza and health D -G Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize, far right, with a nursing sister at Bernice Samuel Hospital in Delmas.
on a mission: Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza and health D -G Dr Nonhlanhla Mkhize, far right, with a nursing sister at Bernice Samuel Hospital in Delmas.

"We want the hospitals to function and serve our people correctly. Otherwise, we are saying, when people are sick, they should come and die in our hospitals."

MPUMALANGA premier David Mabuza has conceded that the province's health sector is not in a good state.

During his tour of nine hospitals in the Nkangala district municipality, Mabuza said he had seen patients being fed a slice of brown bread and small portions of chicken livers each for breakfast at Bernice Samuel Hospital in Delmas.

"This is not how we should treat our people, as a provincial government," Mabuza said yesterday.

"We want the hospitals to function and serve our people correctly. Otherwise, we are saying, when people are sick, they should come and die in our hospitals."

Mabuza said the public perception of government hospitals had to be transformed.

"It cannot be right that people would prefer to stay home, simply because they are afraid that when they come to government hospitals, they will die," Mabuza said.

"Those who are given the responsibility of ensuring that our people get healthcare should do so or else we will relieve them if they cannot do their work."

Mabuza said he had discovered that staff and equipment shortages were the major challenges affecting most of the hospitals he had visited.

He learnt that Bernice Samuel Hospital had 52 beds, headed by only four nursing sisters, who ended up doing the work of auxiliary nurses.

The nursing sisters were continuously working overtime as there were no extra people to relieve them, or when they were off duty.

The hospital's out-patient department was reportedly receiving about 60 patients a day.

It also had no fridges for storage of certain medication, and the mortuary's cold room was not working, leaving corpses in the open.

The nurses told Mabuza that they were mostly depressed, as the situation was worsening day-by-day.

He has asked the hospital to submit a list of all their needs to the province's director-general's office and to the department of health to help formulate a plan for urgent interventions.

In some hospitals, people stood in long queues and others did not have enough medication.

Mabuza - who is expected to resume his visits to hospitals on Friday - said: "In as much as we would want to say we are providing healthcare, we are deliberately killing our people when we make them defraud on treatments, because we cannot give them medication for their chronic diseases." - mashabas@sowetan.co.za

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Shocking conditions at Bernice Samuel hospital

LAST Monday Sowetan exposed the dire conditions at the Bernice Samuel Hospital in Delmas, Mpumalanga, where nurses claimed to be burnt out and pregnant women lay on beds in corridors.

Nurses were struggling to attend to the 5,000 patients they see each month. There were only 16 doctors instead of the required 24 .

Added to this the provincial health department had announced that the use of locum doctors would be suspended because of expensive overtime pay.

The hospital was very clean, though.

The province currently has an 81% vacancy rate for doctors and 66% for nurses, adding pressure to problems at 33 hospitals in Mpumalanga.

The hospital's patient intake had also increased by 2,700 during the first quarter of this year to 17,500.

Nurses were doubling up as HIV counsellors and space constraints resulted in pregnant women giving birth on the floor of the delivery room, which has only two beds.

While most nurses complained of exhaustion, several unscrupulous colleagues were allegedly abusing the overtime policy and taking home more than the allowed 30% of their salaries in overtime.

In August the hospital paid out about R300,000 in overtime salaries.

Gross staff shortages had also affected the newly built surgical theatre, worth R26-million, which had become a white elephant.

At the time of the exposédepartment spokesman Dumisani Mlangeni said that doctors' vacancy rate would be reduced from 81 to 60%.

- sifilel@sowetan.co.za

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