Siyabonga Sithole
The Democratic Alliance's (DA) shadow minister of health, Jack Bloom has decried the prevalence of intermittent phone and switchboard problems across Gauteng's public hospitals.
Following the party's statement on the state of the province's phone problems, Bloom says he has received a deluge of responses from a number of patients and family matters who have since relayed their own horror experiences at some of the public hospitals in the province.
Two weeks ago Bloom said the issue of broken or intermittent switchboard communication was prevalent in at least 25 public hospitals in the province with some hospitals and health facilities having had switchboard problems for up to 10 years.
This he said was a sad indictment on the state of the hospitals in the province which the department of health needed to resolve immediately.
"Some of these responses show the distress caused by not being able to get through to hospitals to find out find out who their relatives are doing," Bloom said in a statement.
According to the party, Pholosong Hospital has had no landline phones for over six weeks, while the Bheki Mlangeni Hospital has had two weeks of broken telephone communication with Helen Joseph Hospital having been cut off for six days and Yusuf Dadoo Hospital recording five days of no telephone communication.
Other hospitals fingered for intermittent switchboard and telephone problems include Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, Tambo Memorial Hospital, Rahima Moosa, Pretoria West and South Rand Hospitals.
All the above hospitals are reported to have had intermittent switchboard problems for a minimum of three to five years at a time.
The Weskoppies Hospital is reported to have had intermittent problems since 2006, while the Sterkfontein Hospital has been affected by intermittent switchboard issues since 2012.
Bloom said even when phones are answered and get through, there were still problems experienced with getting the right information.
"It is appalling that the Gauteng department of health has not been able to do a simple thing like getting switchboards to work properly," he said.
Bloom said he will continue to put pressure on the department to ensure that there is reliable telephone communication at all public hospitals in the province.