PATIENTS WITH BROKEN LEGS WAIT AT KALAFONG HOSPITAL

Patients with broken legs at the Kalafong hospital in Pretoria cannot be operated on because of a broken operating table. One patient has been lying there for a month waiting for his leg to be operated on.

Another patient, 22-year-old Eugene Small, was admitted on Saturday night with a fractured femur after an accident, but has not yet had surgery. It appears that there may be as many as 30 patients needing surgery for broken leg bones.

The problem is that a special operating table that allows for pins to be inserted in bones has been broken for about two weeks. It has been sent for repairs, but proper alternative arrangements have not yet been made.

This is an appalling situation that needs to be rectified urgently. I am currently trying to get hospital management to attend to this matter urgently as the patients are suffering severely.

Arrangements should be made for these patients to be operated on at other hospitals, and the operating table should be repaired or replaced as soon as possible. It is yet another example of poor maintenance that leads to equipment failure at our state hospitals.

Statement issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Health Spokesman, February 2 2011

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