Cape Town - As the country’s health system strains under the weight of the second wave of Covid-19 infections, it will soon have a welcome boost in resources with 2 367 medical interns and 1 693 medical community service practitioners.
At a National Coronavirus Command Council briefing yesterday, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said they would form part of the 7 895 community service workforce.
He emphasised that the safety of health-care workers remained paramount while the country was fighting the pandemic.
“We are concerned by the rise in the number of professionals becoming infected with Covid during the second wave. We continue to engage the unions and apprise them on this plan and our response to health and safety issues,” Mkhize said.
According to the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) over 41 000 healthcare workers have been infected in both first and second waves, and at least 400 deaths reported.
South Africa had at the weekend surpassed one million infections with more than 27 000 deaths.
Mkhize said the government had made huge efforts to secure PPEs (personal protective equipment) for all health-care workers.
“We actually put, in every facility, occupational health safety committees which must discuss at facility level if there are any challenges with the availability of PPEs,” Mkhize said.
Mkhize said the availability of PPEs was above 87%, covering all the facilities that have been audited.
Mkhize said in a few days they would welcome 2 367 medical interns and 1 693 medical community service practitioners who were part of 7 895 community service workforce.
“These are new employees we bring into the system to help with the situation. Every year, we have to provide posts for these categories,” he said.
The overall positivity rate for newly tested individuals was 32.9% with Western Cape recording 45%, followed by Limpopo at 41%, KwaZulu-Natal at 36% and Mpumalanga with 33%.
“This increase in positivity shows us that we have a fast growing epidemic. The positivity rates are a major concern as we used to have 10% and less, Mkhize said.
There were currently 11 256 patients in hospital with 3 543 on oxygen and 604 on ventilators.
At a separate briefing yesterday, Premier Alan Winde announced the province had recorded a total of 199 353 Covid-19 cases and 6 512 deaths – of which 180 were registered in the last 24 hours.
With growing infection rates among health-care workers, contracting additional staff was a big challenge as volunteer numbers were also dwindling, said provincial health head Keith Cloete at a press briefing yesterday.
“The biggest challenge is the increasing Covid infection rate among health-care workers, and the impact on staff member isolation and quarantine.”
Winde said they were trying their best to cope with growing demands.
“The next two weeks are critical in our fight against Covid-19. I urge residents to abide by the new adjusted level 3 restrictions so that we can help to relieve the pressure on our health-care system and on our hard-working health-care workers,” said Winde.
He said the province had added 774 additional beds into the system which includes tents at Khayelitsha and Wesfleur hospitals, where admissions and discharges will be managed.
Tents were also being erected at the Hospital Hope (Brackengate), Mitchell’s Plan, Helderberg, Eerste River and Karl Bremmer.
Afrox currently produces 65 tons of oxygen per day, with provincial health currently using 52 tons per day. Cloete said Afrox agreed to make an additional 5 tons a day available to the department if needed.
Denosa meanwhile welcomed the level 3 restrictions, saying curbing the further spread of Covid-19 over the festive season would save the lives of family members and health-care workers.
“That over 41 000 healthcare workers have since been infected in both first and second waves is calamitous to say the least. That more than 430 health-care workers have been infected in the second wave alone is indicative of the disastrous position the health-care workers have been placed in due to this pandemic.
The organisation paid tribute to health-care workers who have died and called for the protection of those who remain on the service line, with many quarantined.