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Hospitals in Nelson Mandela Bay are on the brink of total collapse due to critical medical staff and equipment shortages, yet the Eastern Cape Department of Health seems unable to intervene to save hard-working medical workers and patients from this imminent disaster.

Patients are dying and doctors, nurses and other medical personnel are overworked to a state of utter exhaustion.

Today, 27 July 2022, I was joined by DA EC Deputy Provincial Leader, Bobby Stevenson, MPL, PE Northern Areas Constituency Leader, Yusuf Cassim, MPL, local DA councillors and activists in picketing in front of the Livingstone Hospital. 

We handed over a memorandum calling on the EC MEC for Health, Nomakosazana Meth, and the Head of Department, Dr Rolene Wagner, to make urgent interventions to address the critical backlog of surgeries and infrastructural challenges at the Livingstone, Dora Nginza and provincial hospitals. These include:

• Place a moratorium on the filling of posts in the bloated and dysfunctional administration.
• Rationalise all non-functional or dysfunctional Lilitha campuses.
• Conduct a full independent forensic audit on all non-verified personnel.
• Conduct a full independent forensic audit on all Commuted Overtime (COT) claims.
• Place a moratorium on all non-critical scheduled Health Facilities infrastructure upgrades.

The implementation of these interventions will lead to cost-saving that must be viremented to these hospitals, to:

• Settle all outstanding debts to suppliers of critical medical equipment and implants, so that the backlog in orthopaedic and other critical surgeries can be addressed.
• Completely overhaul the electrical supply to the hospitals to prevent future closures due to electrical failures.
• Fully upgrade the infrastructure at the hospitals so that they comply with all Occupational Health and Safety regulations.
• Fill all critical vacant funded posts to maximise surgical capability in these institutions.

If the MEC and HOD are unable to implement these interventions, the department must be placed under administration in terms of Section 100 of the Constitution, until such time as it can manage its financial constraints effectively.

We will also engage the MEC for Finance, Mlungisi Mvoko, to request an earlier adjustment budget to ringfence funds for a health department bailout.

The DA will continue to fight for our hospitals to receive adequate budgets and medical personnel so that the right of patients to adequate and timeous medical care is protected.

Issued by Jane Cowley, MPL - DA EC Shadow MEC for Health