CAPE TOWN - The poor state of affairs at Khayelitsha District Hospital (KDH) where the official bed capacity is 340, but which often sees about 446 patients, is far from being resolved.
This as plans are afoot to expand the hospital's psychiatric centre, which has been described as one of two areas experiencing severe demand, in 2023.
According to KDH Chief Executive Officer (CEO) David Binza, the hospital was seeing a strong growing burden of mental health conditions, mostly owing to substance abuse and unemployment due to Covid-19.
There is only one specialist in this area accommodating mental health clients.
“We are experiencing a lot of constraints because this is the only hospital in Khayelitsha and the demand often exceeds supply. We sometimes operate at 130%. Khayelitsha is also dealing with a quadruple burden of diseases and trauma cases,” said Binza.
He was briefing the Standing Committee on Health on Wednesday on plans to address their various challenges following an oversight by the committee.
This followed a Cape Times story that exposed conditions in the hospital where patients were huddled on the floor and used blankets to sleep while being connected to ventilators.
The ANC’s Rachel Windvogel called for the provincial government to grant the R100 million that the hospital management and board has requested to improve service delivery.
“Yes health is everyone’s responsibility, but as the government we need to place things in order. Receiving daily complaints is really unacceptable. It is clear that the CEO and the hospital board are working hard to improve the conditions. However, they have not received the necessary support from the government,” said Windvogel.
EFF’s Nosipho Makamba-Botya called for the entire hospital to be expanded, saying it was currently too small for the growing population in Khayelitsha, compared to 2012 when the facility was commissioned.
“In terms of expanding the hospital, we could need the extension of the emergency centre service. The only thing that we know is on the cards in the extension of the psychiatric centre, this will solve the treatment of patients which sometimes ends up violating human rights and Covid-19 protocols.
“The load can be to an extent where sometimes we are having to flout them so that people have access to health service. If a hospital could be built in Belhar maybe this could alleviate some of these challenges,” said Binza.
Provincial Health chief operating officer Dr Saadiq Kariem said: “There is additional funding that we have allocated to improve a range of services including the surgical backlog. Khayelitsha hospital is one of the facilities that is going to benefit from the expanded services. We have been having robust engagement with the provincial treasury about the many needs in the health department that are particularly exacerbated by post Covid-19.”
Committee chairperson Wendy Kaizer-Philander said it must be acknowledged that KDH experienced a mortality rate of between 2-4% - comparable to other District Hospitals in the City despite their challenges.
Cape Times