Durban - THE KwaZulu-Natal health department has admitted to staffing challenges at health-care facilities in the province.
This comes after the IFP and unions said more health-care facilities had staffing problems, after Addington Hospital became the latest to be reported on.
The provincial manager of the Public Servants Association of SA, Mlungisi Ndlovu, said their members had complained of under-staffing at the King Edward VIII, Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central, Prince Mshiyeni Memorial and Port Shepstone hospitals, and clinics due to infections among health-care workers.
Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA provincial secretary Mandla Shabangu said staff shortages were being experienced “all over”.
Last month, Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu said the department had formed teams of health-care workers that would go to facilities with shortages. The teams would move to hospitals as needed.
After blowing the whistle on staff shortages at the Addington Covid-19 ward, IFP Health spokesperson Ncamisile Nkwanyana said: “It’s not just Addington with these problems – it’s most hospitals and clinics”.
Nkwanyana said she had received a clip of a nurse from the hospital complaining about the facility’s state, and she had forwarded it to health portfolio committee chairperson Nomakiki Majola, and asked for an oversight visit.
“Hospital management agreed there is a dire shortage of nurses, porters and cleaners. We were told the hospital was allocated 44 nurses specifically for Covid-19, but this is not enough as they are divided into a night shift and a day shift. The hospital does not have cleaning staff and porters in the Covid-19 section,” said Nkwanyana.
Majola said there had been an increase in Covid-19 patients, which led to the hospital creating three additional wards. “The staffing is not equal to the new developments that have been brought in by Covid-19,” she said.
Majola said the hospital was not staffed to manage the high volumes of Covid-19 patients, but management and the health department were aware of the situation and were also dealing with the cleanliness of the section.
She said they could not allow the health department to maintain a moratorium on replacing staff or filling posts. “The issue of the moratorium will not be tolerated under Covid-19 because it is giving us a window of making sure that our wards are staffed normally, including by doctors, nurses and general assistants, because that is the situation we are faced with,” said Majola.
Simelane-Zulu said they were aware of staffing challenges at facilities and had highlighted the need to fill at least 60% of posts as a priority even before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.
“In response to the pandemic, and in light of the staffing challenges, we have begun a process of recruiting 8 893 staff to facilities where we are creating additional bed capacity, and in the facilities where we have created field hospitals and temporary structures,” she said, adding 1 030 enrolled nurses were being upgraded to professional nurses.
Daily News