| State hospitals 'in crisis' [boodskap #118405] |
Tue, 21 October 2008 14:22 |
Daun Johnson
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State hospitals 'in crisis'
21 October 2008, 11:55
Related ArticlesOver expenditure cripples hospitals
Minister pledges to fight for better health
By Vivian Attwood
State hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal are on the verge of collapse and it
is only a matter of time before more patients die as a result.
This is the fear of senior doctors who say they are at the end of
their tether, and have revealed that staff at hospitals are working
under intolerable conditions, and have patients who are dying when
they should not.
The KwaZulu-Natal department of health has disputed claims that a
moratorium on vacancies at provincial hospitals is in place. But the
doctors refute this, saying that hospitals are effectively prevented
from filling open posts.
Six doctors, who requested anonymity, say that staff shortages and a
lack of equipment were damaging health care, and were caused by the
KZN department's attempt to recoup a budgetary overspend of
R1,2-billion in the past financial year by freezing posts and not
ordering much-needed equipment.
On Monday the Daily News carried an open letter to the new national
Minister of Health, Barbara Hogan, which set out paediatricians'
despair at the sagging standard of medicine.
According to a paediatrician at Addington Hospital, premature babies
are already dying because vital machinery that was ordered years ago
has not been sanctioned by the department of health.
A doctor who formerly worked at Port Shepstone General Hospital
revealed that a woman with an ectopic pregnancy had to be rushed to
Prince Mshiyeni Hospital in Durban because there was no anaesthetist
available at Port Shepstone. The ICU there was staffed by interns,
rather than qualified doctors. The woman narrowly escaped death.
At Addington Hospital a woman died in a waiting room without seeing a
doctor as her unsuspecting husband waited nearby - a death reported by
the Daily News on October 10.
KZN Department of Health spokesperson Leon Mbangwa denied that posts
had been frozen.
"We definitely don't have a moratorium on clinical staff," he said.
"That would include critical posts like paediatric and anaesthetic
doctors. We have, however, embarked on a process of trying to control
over-expenditure. Hospital managers must motivate for critical posts
to be filled, and fill out the necessary documentation. Some civil
servants are too lazy to follow the right channels."
A specialist at Addington Hospital claimed the Department of Health
was all too aware of the shortage of staff around the province. He
said the moratorium was no figment of their imaginations, but a
pressing reality.
"Come January, when interns leave, we will have just four doctors to
deal with the 3 000 paediatric patients we treat each month. Our goose
will be well and truly cooked.
"We keep inundating the human resources department to ask whether the
moratorium has been lifted. Each week they have to say no.
"Management has also sent letters to the department of health, but
it's like appealing to a rock."
A source close to the Port Shepstone Hospital said morale was at an
all-time low. "Doctors are at the end of their tether. The hospital
has been losing people for all the usual reasons, but since April they
haven't been able to hire replacements. By the end of the year only
two specialists will be left in anaesthesia.
"Incidents like that of the pregnant woman who nearly died are common.
There have been a number of near disasters."
At Addington, staff said they were "running on empty". Along with
staff shortages they have to contend with a lack of potentially
life-saving equipment, and the frequent absence of basic hygiene tools
like antiseptic soap, towels, scrubs and even cotton wool.
"The Department of Health justifies the moratorium by claiming a lack
of funds, but what is money if babies are dying at this hospital?"
said a paediatrician.
"We don't have a fully functional ventilator for premature babies.
Inevitably, there are infants who don't make it as a result. You can't
apply business principles to medicine."
The crisis is every bit as acute at Grey's Hospital in
Pietermaritzburg. A source revealed that the hospital had not received
new equipment for several years.
"We are faced with repeated failure of essential equipment like
anaesthetic machines and ventilators," she said.
"There is talk of shutting down the paediatric department because of
staff shortages. Most of the specialists I have spoken to are planning
to leave the country.
"Matters have simply gone too far. We can't condone what's happening
any longer."
Mbangwa said he was completely unaware of a critical shortage of staff
in the anaesthetic department at Port Shepstone Hospital.
"It is the first time I have heard about this."
ÂThis article was originally published on page 1 of The Daily News on
October 21, 2008
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