Dumisani Dube

LONG WAIT: Patients queue at the NHLS laboratory at Helen Joseph Hospital in Joburg. Picture: Dumisani Dube

Anso Thom

Health-e News Service

Gauteng’s public health service has run out of life-saving drugs and its laboratory services are on the brink of collapse.

This week, concerned doctors met with senior officials from the national and provincial health departments demanding concrete steps to address the two pressing issues, an end to critical staff shortages and the rationalisation of hospital budgets.

The medical professionals, including senior academics, specialists and professors working at three academic hospitals, sent a desperate letter on Monday to the health and finance ministers, the Gauteng premier and health MEC and the head of the provincial health department, inviting them to an urgent meeting on Tuesday.

“We trust you understand the urgency. Each day that goes by, patients are put at risk,” they wrote.

It is understood that an undertaking at the meeting was given by senior national and provincial officials, including Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, to work around the clock to restore the drug supply and laboratory services by the end of the week.

Gauteng premier spokesman Simon Zwane said the province was committed to clearing all its health-related debts by the end of June.

Professor Ashraf Coovadia, a paediatrician specialist at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital, said drug shortages had grown chronic towards the middle of last year. “Before that, we had good alternatives when we ran out of one drug. Now we are finding the ‘stockouts’ of essential drugs to be more protracted, and directly linked to the non-payment of suppliers.”

He said the final straw for him was when he was told last week that the pharmacy had run out of a first-line drug to treat bacterial meningitis, a potentially fatal condition.

Coovadia said the latest pharmacy list at the hospital showed there were no first-line drugs to treat seizures, diabetes and high levels of potassium – all life threatening conditions.

“As far as the National Health Laboratory Services (NHLS) is concerned, I can’t even get a simple urine test done to determine if a baby has an infection.”

Treatment Action Campaign chairwoman Nonkosi Khumalo said they were aware of widespread “stockouts” of antiretroviral drugs in Gauteng, with some patients being overdosed on available drugs and under-dosed on scarce supplies, especially tenofovir and lamivudine. “This is a sure recipe for drug resistance.”

Other patients with HIV have been waiting since last year for TB results. “Our information is that these patients have been duped into believing their specimens had been lost, while they had not been sent away in the first place,” said Khumalo.

She said several clinics and hospitals had no gloves or bottles to collect TB sputum. Some of the hospitals and clinics she listed include Kaalfontein, Ebony Park, Edenvale, Lenasia, Vosloorus, Kempton Park and Alexandra.

It has also been revealed that the NHLS has been unable to provide courier services since Monday, meaning specimens from clinics and hospitals could not be transported to laboratories.

Non-payment to laboratories could also mean services being available at the four central hospitals only in the next fortnight. In-house laboratories have already been closed at Kopanong, Yusuf Dadoo, Germiston, Rahima Moosa, Edenvale, South Rand and Pretoria West hospitals. Several other laboratories will operate only between 8am and 7pm.

NHLS CEO Dr Sagie Pillay said he could not continue to run services on promises, and that Gauteng owed the NHLS R697 million by the end of last year.

A junior doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, said the academic hospitals, including Helen Joseph, were running out of food, linen and drugs daily. “It is heartbreaking. A few weeks ago, against great odds, we saved a guy who had a blood clot and a heart functioning at 10 percent. Once we pulled him through, he lay naked on a bed for a week. There was no linen.”

In another incident, they had to “play God” when two young patients had to be ventilated. “The only two available machines had been out of order for months, but we fiddled with them and got one going. We had to choose who to save. It’s not right,” he said.