Public health system failing pregnant women and new-borns

7 August 2023

It is with great concern that the DA notes media reports of 36-year-old Louisa Radcliffe who was forced to deliver her baby on her own when nurses at Tambo Memorial Hospital in Boksburg refused to assist her in January last year. Louisa’s baby tragically died 8 days later in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

It is with even greater concern that Louisa’s is not an isolated experience. The past few months there have been reports of foreign mothers being extorted at Tambo Memorial Hospital. The DA will conduct an oversight to the hospital in the coming weeks.

It is also troubling that the other hospitals and provinces fare no better. At the Mahikeng Provincial Hospital (MPH) in North West, babies were being placed in cardboard boxes, while 909 babies died in Gauteng the past 3 years due to neonatal ICU (NICU) shortages, inadequate infection control, mismanagement, and hypothermia. Staff at Witbank Provincial Hospital in Mpumalanga not only allegedly endangered Cindy Steyn’s life, but also her son, Xavier’s.

Former Health Ombud, Prof Malegapuru Makgoba, made a number of recommendations after an investigation found that pregnant women were forced to sleep on the floor and infection protocols were breached.

Furthermore, earlier this year a DA parliamentary question revealed that of the 178 445 children aged 0 to 5 years that died in public hospitals over the past decade, 19 707 were due to pneumonia and diarrhoea, and 12 582 from moderate and severe acute malnutrition.

The DA will submit in-depth written parliamentary questions to the Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, regarding the number and cause of neonatal deaths in public hospitals.

We have done numerous oversights to the Tambo Memorial Hospital and other Gauteng hospitals and have always communicated our findings and concerns to the Gauteng Department of Health, yet there is little to no intervention from the Department’s side.

The only conclusion is that this gross failure to intervene and correct course is due to weak political will from the ANC government and general lack of care for South Africa’s most vulnerable.

Issued by Michele Clarke, DA Shadow Minister of Health, 7 August 2023