MBOMBELA – Despite photographic evidence of the collapse within Rob Ferreira Hospital, as well as testimonies from several patients who have suffered terrible ordeals during load shedding earlier this year, the Department of Health says the DA is “negative” and “subjective” in rating the hospital as second worst in the country.
The department issued a statement after Lowvelder published a report on the DA’s findings in Friday’s edition. Mr Dumisani Malamule, spokesman for health, described the findings as subjective and uninformed as the survey wasn’t conducted by an authorised assessment-survey organisation.
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“Hospitals in the country are surveyed and rated by the Health Standards Compliance (HSC) Office at the National Department of Health, which conducts surveys annually on all health institutions. The ones by the HSC office focus on six health-priority areas which includes cleanliness, safety and security, waiting times, staff attitudes, infection control and drug supply.” The department would like to state that although Rob Ferreira Hospital had challenges in some areas, a lot had been done to remedy a number of them which included among others, generators which were faulty and were now fully functional, lifts which were also problematic but had since been attended to.
“The department would like to add that major renovations and upgrading projects are also taking place at the hospital and these include a fully completed rehabilitation centre, a new residence building with 150 units, repairs and replacement of damaged roof covers, sanitary fittings and plumbing, carpentry and ironmongery fittings, electrical fittings, walls and damaged paintwork.”
Malamule said all of this “has obviously been overlooked by the DA team that claimed to have surveyed the hospital. It is quite clear that the intention of the opposition party is to mislead the public by discrediting the good work and service delivery that has been achieved by the Mpumalangan Government”.
“The department would like to call upon the public not to be misled by the negative utterances from the DA. The public must be rest assured that all endeavours are being made to ensure that service delivery at Rob Ferreira and other health institutions in the province are upgraded with an intention to provide better health services.
“The department would also like to request the public to ensure that they voice their opinions about its facilities through suggestion boxes which are available at all the health facilities. The public’s opinions play a vital role in assisting the department to improve service delivery.”
