Pretoria - Health authorities in Gauteng are hellbent on establishing why maternity staff members at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria were resigning in large numbers.
Health Department spokesman Steve Mabona said they were engaging with various units within the hospital to ascertain the trail of complaints that led to the resignations.
They would also seek to establish why the complaints were never attended to. “The department views this matter in a very serious light,” Mabona said.
The resignation of specialist nurses in the maternity ward could become an exodus and cripple the service if management did not intervene, according to staff.
The nurses, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation, blamed the resignations squarely on a senior manager, who they accused of racism, victimisation and general unfair treatment of staff.
At least four professionals were due to leave at the end of this month to add to three who left last month, saying their complaints were never addressed.
Those who have left returned to studies or joined other hospitals.
The nurses were from the labour, maternity, gynaecology, post-natal and antenatal wards.
However, they accused their leader of moving them across the wards into areas where their strengths were not needed.
“We are swopped to frustrate us and keep us under control,” the affected nurses wrote in a memorandum to the labour relations department at the hospital, chief nursing officer and chief executive officer.
They also outlined their frustration and issues of contention, including relief procedures applied for sick and pregnant staff.
In the memorandum, the nurses wrote about the duty roster which they said was changed without consultation.
The revelation came just days after it emerged that surgeries at the hospital were being delayed and postponed due to malfunctioning of chillers, or air-conditioning units.
This has resulted in patients needing surgeries being turned away from the specialist hospital that caters for patients from three provinces - Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng.
In 2013, Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu said professional teams would be deployed to Steve Biko and Dr George Mukhari hospitals in Pretoria, and Charlotte Maxeke and Chris Hani Baragwanath academic hospitals in Joburg to ensure all equipment was maintained to prevent breakdowns.
However, staff at Steve Biko said no team ever arrived.
Workers said patients in need of operations were being kept in the hospital for longer than necessary as the problem persisted and entered its second week.
They include patients who had been in the hospital for weeks while being prepared for operations.
Some patients told the Pretoria News they had to go home to wait to be called back for the surgeries.
But others were too sick or came from far and thus had no option but to stay on hoping to be operated on soon.
Theatre space was reserved for patients with emergency situations like trauma and motor vehicle accidents. However, a patient waiting for a hernia repair was not less important, according to staff members.
The problem stemmed from the breakdown of three of the hospital’s five chillers, which feed air-conditioning systems in theatres and allowed staff to regulate temperature during operations.
They had been malfunctioning for more than a year, and subsequently three had completely broken down two weeks ago, staff said. Since then surgeons had to reshuffle their schedules in what insiders described as a “mess”.
The Department of Health admitted there was a problem, but said only four procedures were cancelled.
“Three of these chillers are running while the contractor is on site repairing the other two,” Mabona said.
@ntsandvose
Pretoria News
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