Parliament, Cape Town - Shocking conditions at some of the country’s major hospitals require a full-scale investigation by the Ombud in the Office of Health Standards Compliance, the Democratic Alliance said in a statement on Monday.
Party officials conducted unannounced visits at nine hospitals to assess, among others, working conditions, staff shortages, and the effect of loadshedding on healthcare.
DA MP Wilmot James described the Pelanomi hospital in Bloemfontein as a “medical catastrophe”.
“A visit there on Sunday 6 March revealed that there is no access control. The broken fence that allowed the rape of a nurse some years ago is still severed at multiple points,” James said.
“Because the budget has been depleted at the end of 2014, there is a chronic shortage of medicines, including painkillers for victims of accidents.”
The DA claim generators at the Rob Ferreira hospital in Nelspruit had not been working since July 2014.
“When the electricity goes off, nursing staff and doctors are expected to keep critical patients, including new born babies, alive by manually bagging patients to keep them breathing until the electricity comes back on,” said James.
“The DA believes that an investigation by the Ombud into these provincial hospitals will provide a wealth of information to the Minister of Health and the South African medical community in order to ensure that hospitals comply with the NCS [National Core Standards] and to avert hospitals from crumbling entirely.”
African News Agency