The Democratic Alliance (DA) slammed the Health Department today for the running of Stanger Hospital, which they allege is a “disaster zone”.

The party claims that the hospital’s CT scanner has been dysfunctional for a year, that the hospital has only one life support for newborn babies and that it has run out of the vital Mantoux test used as part of the diagnosis TB.

According to the DA’s “professional sources”, emergency patients are being transferred to hospitals in Empangeni and Durban, “under difficult circumstances, in order to be scanned”.

The party goes on to state that there is a shortage of ambulances in the province for such transfers.

“The hospital can only ventilate one critically ill new born at a time. Parents of the very unfortunate others who are not accepted by referral hospitals or private hospitals are left without care to a terminal end.  There is also only one ventilator in the paediatric ward.  This is severely impacting on one of the hospital’s core function which is to save the lives of children and babies.”

The opposition party stated that they had written to KZN Health MEC, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo requesting urgent and immediate intervention at the hospital.

The hospital had not responded at the time of going to print.