Hlabisa Hospital not out of the woods
The hospital's CEO, Deputy Nursing Manager, Human Resources Manager and Financial Manager have been relieved of their duties.
FOLLOWING the replacement of Hlabisa Hospital’s entire management team late last year, KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, recently visited the facility to see how it is functioning under the new task team.
Dhlomo’s intervention last year followed numerous poor service delivery-related reports, most notably a malfunctioning laundry which led to staff hand washing patients’ soiled garments and linen, leaving them on the grass to dry, and returning them to patients without being ironed.
As a result, the hospital’s CEO, Deputy Nursing Manager, Human Resources Manager and Financial Manager were relieved of their duties.
While Dhlomo, following his visit, assured the provincial health portfolio committee that conditions had improved under new management, a statement by Democratic Alliance (DA) Spokesperson on Health, Dr Rishigen Viranna, reported otherwise.
According to Viranna, who paid the facility an impromptu oversight visit, Hlabisa Hospital ‘remains in a deplorable state’.
Viranna said hospital staff reported no change in circumstances or in support from the provincial health department since Dhlomo’s visit last year.
This has, in turn, affected equipment supplies, staffing and medical care. The worst affected areas are reportedly casualty, labour and post-natal.
While the laundry is now capable of dealing with hospital washing needs, two machines reportedly remain broken while none of the ironing machine platforms are working.
Furthermore, while generators do supply electricity to vital areas during load-shedding, the hospital’s 80-year-old walls are crumbling, linoleum floor is peeling, over-utilised casualty department shares facilities with the out-patients’ clinic and new mothers have to share beds in the over-crowded maternity ward.
‘At times there are only two registered midwives to deliver a baby, so when there are three or more women in active labour, the ward is in a crisis,’ said Viranna.
Dhlomo has promised the provincial health portfolio committee a fully functioning Hlabisa Hospital by June this year.
‘The DA expects him to remain cognizant of this and the fact that, after so many years of neglect, it will take hard work and accountable management to fix it,’ concluded Viranna.
@TamlynJolly
