Netcare Alberlito Hospital’s decision to close its maternity and childcare facilities in early 2023 has prompted widespread public outcry across the North Coast. Last week, Alberlito’s nine specialists within the paediatric, obstetric and gynaecological fields were informed that their leases would not be renewed in January and that they had to vacate their rooms by the end of April next year.

The hospital’s second-floor wards, which comprise 15 maternity beds, 15 paediatric beds and 7 neonatal intensive care beds, will be closed at the same time. It is understood that notices will be open to “individual understanding” per each specialist and Netcare has confirmed that all specialists would retain their practicing privileges at the hospital.

This includes Professor André van Niekerk, Dr Strini Chetty, Dr Vanessa Comley, Dr Leneque Lindeque, Dr Nombuso Mthethwa, Dr David Ngotho, Dr Kamendran Pather, Dr Candice Roberts and Dr Marise Subrayan. But in a combined statement on the issue on October 22, the group of nine contended their practices would not be viable without admission facilities.

Without the specialists in residence, the services of planned births, neonatal care and overnight stays for paediatric cases will cease.

This is aside from the specialised and emergency services that each doctor offers. Netcare said the hospital would still be available for paediatric and maternity emergencies and cater for child patients in their 15-bed day ward which has three intensive care beds.

This was disputed by the group of specialists. “A facility cannot be considered to be fully resourced for all paediatric and maternity emergencies without the support of available specialised paediatricians and obstetricians,” they said.

As for the reason for the childcare unit’s closure, Netcare said it was based on low patient numbers which meant it was no longer viable to run while indicating a need to provide better mental healthcare facilities.

“It has regrettably become clear that the hospital is seeing insufficient obstetric cases with little real demand for the maternity, neonatal intensive care, and paediatric beds currently available.”

These specialised services, which families only require very occasionally, are available at other healthcare facilities, including at Netcare hospitals in Durban, Umhlanga and surrounds,” said Netcare in a statement on Monday.

In that same release, Netcare said that since the hospital opened it had averaged 15 births per month, with only 13 per month in 2022 and no in-hospital births between 2019-2021.

On Tuesday morning the nine specialists disputed the quoted statistics, saying the real birth rate was more than double that, among other incorrect claims.

Netcare later retracted the incorrect figures, calling their inclusion an error and apologised for the mistake. It had not committed to updated figures at the time of going to print.

In place of the current childcare wards, a dedicated mental health section for adolescents and adults will be established with the permission of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health (DoH).

“In June this year the DoH revealed that more than 6.5 million people in South Africa are in need of professional mental health intervention, of which almost 1.3 million require care for severe psychiatric conditions,” said Netcare.

In terms of local current mental healthcare infrastructure, there is a dedicated Akeso Clinic in Umhlanga.

Akeso is a subsidiary of Netcare. Once news of the decision reached the public last week, it drew widespread ire from the community who felt the unit was a crucial part of North Coast healthcare infrastructure.

Expecting mothers will now need to travel to KwaDukuza, Tongaat or Umhlanga to deliver or for specialist childcare.

The decision represents a major lifestyle change for the specialists too.

“I started in 2010 with a few of the other specialists here from inception in 2007. We feel as though we were an integral part of building the hospital’s reputation, with Alberlito often seeing much more of me than my own family. It was a big decision for us to all leave Durban and other cities to come here, but we felt it was worth building something,” said paediatrician, Dr Kamendran Pather.

“Mother and child care forms the bulk of every country’s healthcare system, and with new families moving to Ballito every day, I feel it is very shortsighted,” he said.

As for community response, a petition on change.org to halt the process had reached 10 000 signatures at the time of print, with a peaceful protest planned for Thursday this week.

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