COSATU Eastern Cape press statement on baby deaths crisis at Frere hospital, East London
COSATU Eastern Cape is extremely concerned at recent press reports of a baby deaths crisis at the East London Hospital Complex. However, following further investigations, media reports that an epidemic of baby deaths was caused by a so-called super-bug, klebsiella, have proven to be inaccurate. The Provincial health crisis is much more fundamental.
The number of baby deaths is in fact not that different from deaths in comparable public hospitals around the country. And there is in fact no ‘superbug': klebsiella is a normal infection for which treatment should be routine if the appropriate drugs are available. The causes of the deaths, of which there are without doubt an unacceptably high number, and other serious service delivery deficiencies, appear to be much more basic.
COSATU's affiliated union, SAMA, has listed a range of serious problems besetting Cecilia Makiwane and Frere which together make up the East London Hospital Complex. These include:
* A serious budget shortfall for the Complex: while R1.2Bn would be appropriate for hospitals of this size, the Complex currently only receives R750 million, slightly more than 60% of what they require
* A chronic lack of consumables including drugs, syringes, dressings, gloves, towels, bed linen etc. The situation is sometimes so dire that disposable syringes have to be re-used and staff have had to beg for donations from the private healthcare sector
* Staff and professional shortages and incompetence: there are insufficient staff numbers in all areas; the administration is understaffed and suffers from insufficient capacity, experience and qualifications
* The provincial Health Department is beset by ongoing theft and corruption: major health depots such as Port Elizabeth, suffer from a serious theft problem and cannot supply sufficient consumables; corruption in procurement processes has led to tenders for services such as laundry being awarded to unqualified service providers
* A failure to provide for patients who have had strokes, have advanced HIV/AIDS, are paraplegics or quadriplegics, are elderly, or who have bedsores and are seriously ill. They and their families are left to fend for themselves.
SAMA particularly expressed its frustration at gross under-staffing of the public health sector. While private hospitals have eight radiologists for about 400 beds, government hospitals have one retired radiologist for 1500 to 1600 beds. Patients in government hospitals needing specialist care are likely to receive two or three minutes of a specialist's time: available specialists are expected to see 80 to 120 patients per day. They are inundated by the sheer number of patients waiting to receive attention.
Doctors and staff at the Complex are frustrated and demoralised when patients' lives are lost merely because of a lack of medication and other consumables caused by an ongoing administrative crisis in Bisho. Over-decentralisation of decision-making in Bisho directorates characterised by administrative incompetence, a poor work ethic and corruption and fraud, impacts seriously on service delivery, leading to unnecessary suffering and loss of life.
And how much worse must the situation be in rural hospitals and clinics if the Bisho Department offers such poor support to major hospitals in the large urban centres?
COSATU is particularly concerned that evidence of a major provincial healthcare crisis arises so soon after publicity around the crisis in provincial education leading to the intervention of National Government. COSATU will be meeting with the Premier and Health MEC on 9 March, 2011, to raise these and other service-related matters.
Statement issued by Mandla Rayi, COSATU Eastern Cape Provincial Secretary, March 7 2011
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