Durban - THE HEALTH portfolio committee was pleased with its findings at Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital and General Justice Gizenga Mpanza Regional Hospital (Stanger Hospital) following its oversight visits to assess the state of quarantine sites and readiness to deal with Covid-19.
The committee was accompanied by the select committee on health and social services.
Committee chairperson Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo said St Augustine’s Hospital was a 469-bed hospital and therefore a huge resource for South Africa and the province.
Dhlomo noted the 22 recommendations from the investigation into the outbreak at St Augustine’s Hospital and said it was pleasing to learn that the hospital had dealt with the recommendations.
Both hospitals recently reopened after they had been closed following Covid-19 outbreaks.
The provincial health department and Netcare Group made a collective decision to close St Augustine’s Hospital in early April after 66 people, 48 staff and 18 patients tested positive for Covid-19. It was reopened on May 10.
The department closed Stanger Hospital at the beginning of May following the positive test results of nine mothers, 42 staff members, babies and hospital staff.
The hospital reopened on May 18.
“We are happy to see their readiness, we are happy to see their designation of this hospital - red, yellow and green zones - marking for patients where they will be channelled. We are happy to see this whole alignment of the hospital,” said Dhlomo.
He said patients could no longer be moved from ward to ward without following certain protocols and neither would nurses change wards.
Moreover, the eThekwini district director who also went on the oversight visits had taken lessons from Netcare to public hospitals in the country.
Dhlomo said when he visited Stanger Hospital yesterday, he realised why the iLembe area had a challenge. King Shaka International Airport and Ballito were at its doorstep, including neighbouring communities which provided employees who shared the same supermarkets.
“The hot spots were in the areas closest to the airport,” said Dhlomo.
He said at Stanger Hospital what he found interesting was that it had a screening, testing and tracing clinic where people who had a cough could be checked.