Pretoria - Revelations by the Gauteng Department of Health that all 37 provincial hospitals were not fully compliant with the health and safety legislation was nothing new nor surprising according to health stakeholders in the country.
According to the third quarterly report by the Gauteng Department of Health tabled in the provincial legislature this week, none of the province's 37 hospitals were compliant with all 23 regulations in the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA).
The report which covered the period between October to December 2020, also found that there was only progress reported at 6 hospitals in the province.
Hospitals that were at the very least compliant with six of the statutory requirements of the OHSA include the Tara Hospital located in Hurlingham, Johannesburg, Kopanong Hospital, Sebokeng hospital, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences (SMU) Oral department, Tshwane District, and the Far East Rand Hospital.
These requirements include the designation of representatives to serve on health and safety committees and doing a Hazardous Identification and Risk Assessment.
DA health spokesperson Jack Bloom said the party was alarmed that there was not a single Gauteng public hospital that complied fully with health and safety legislation.
"The department admits that other hospitals are not doing this, and don’t even send the minutes of meetings. On top of that, it has been estimated that it would cost about R6 billion to ensure that all the hospitals comply with health and safety legislation, but there has been little budget made available for this."
Bloom said as it stood fires were a worrying hazard as there had been four hospital fires in Gauteng in the last seven years, including the devastating fire at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital.
"It is extremely disturbing that many years of poor spending on maintenance has led to the parlous state of our hospitals which risk the lives of patients and staff.
We need a proper plan with adequate funding to ensure that all Gauteng’s public hospitals are protected against avoidable health and safety risks."
Meanwhile, the Democratic Nursing Association of South Africa (Denosa) said the report detailing the poor condition healthcare workers had been exposed to for many years had exonerated workers' desperate pleas for change.
Sibongiseni Delihlazo, the Denosa spokesperson, said the organisation doubted the provincial department was doing anything correctly where it came to health and was in fact compromising services and expertise to communities.
Delihlazo said the conduct of the health department was not only depriving communities of health services but also driving numbers of healthcare workers lower as they opt for better prospects overseas.
"If it isn't a roof falling on staff at the Thembisa hospital's maternity ward, it's the delay of payment to nurses for overtime, and cutting nurses compensation by billions. Gauteng health is the culprit responsible for the deterioration of health facilities."
He said he hoped that the health department would start pulling up its socks as trained nurses were being poached by countries such as the United Kingdom who were also in short supply of healthcare workers.
Pretoria News