Stockpiled medical equipment awaiting reparations
While the DA claims the department of health is dumping medical equipment that is still usable

While the DA claims the department of health is dumping medical equipment that is still usable, the department says the equipment has not been dumped but is awaiting repairs.
During an inspection of the Pietersburg provincial hospital last Thursday, DA Limpopo leader Jacques Smalle said he was shocked to discover piles of medical equipment such as wheelchairs, beds, incubators, trolleys, and photocopy machines that had been dumped behind the hospital. “Medical equipment was just dumped, while patients in the province go without basics like beds, baby incubators and wheelchairs,” he said. He added that the equipment appeared to have only minor defects and in some cases appeared to be in perfectly good shape.
Smalle further said this was especially true of the hospitals in the deep rural areas of Limpopo. “We want to see first-class hospitals and service delivery in the province,” he said.
Health and social development spokesperson, Adéle van der Linde said what the DA observed at the provincial hospital grounds was part of the department’s assets unit. “This is where equipment from all over the province is sent for repairs. It is not a dumping site as no waste is being deposited there. Most of the equipment is indeed repairable and that is the very reason why it is taken there and not disposed of,” she said.
However Smalle said the department was failing to find a service provider that could repair the broken equipment. “We have reason to believe that the medical equipment has been lying there for more than a year without being repaired. The DA wants an urgent meeting with Health MEC Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba to explain why the Limpopo government is dumping medical equipment instead of repairing it,” he said.
