Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane visited the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital in Kimberley on Thursday.
“ORGANISED chaos.” That is how Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and her delegation described the situation at the casualty unit at Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (RMS) Hospital in Kimberley on Thursday.
Mkhwebane conducted an oversight visit to the hospital on Thursday as part of her two-day roadshow in the city.
Mkhwebane interacted with patients and staff at the hospital to hear their grievances.
The greatest concern and grievance from patients and family members seated inside the casualty unit was the waiting period they had to endure before receiving any medical attention.
The CEO of RMS, Dr Alistar Kantani, the head of department (HOD), Riaan Strydom, and the acting head of family matters, Dr Arun Nair, assured Mkhwebane that the hospital had a system in place to ensure that all patients are attended to.
Nair said the system was implemented to ensure that emergency cases receive immediate attention. He noted that patients who do not require urgent medical attention are usually the complainants.
“The casualty unit is divided into two sections and assigned different colours according to the problem of the patient. Patients in the red and orange sections are emergency cases and require immediate medical assistance. Those in the yellow and green sections are not very serious cases. The patients in the green and yellow sections can wait longer, sometimes for a few hours, before getting medical assistance. We have trained nurses who are able to identify which patient should go to which section,” said Nair.
“The challenge is that patients prefer coming to the hospital instead of going to their local clinic. Those in the green and yellow section usually complain about the long hours they had to wait. However, we have found that some of their complaints had been exaggerated.”
Strydom said the department is planning on securing other medical facilities in order to take the pressure off RMS.
“This district does not have a district hospital. Our plan was to utilise Harmony Home, Galeshewe Day Hospital and West End Psychiatric Hospital and to turn Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe into our district hospital. However, we have budget constraints that were a result of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Strydom.
“Our initial plan was to build a district hospital but we now have to work on an alternative plan. We are meeting with the provincial Department of Treasury to discuss the matter. We plan to use West End Hospital for psychiatric patients, as we have seen many patients come to the emergency room with drug-induced mental health problems. Robert Managliso Sobukwe is not equipped to deal with that challenge.”
Mkhwebane said her office had been inundated with complaints from residents about the delay of ambulances in attending to emergencies.
She also questioned why the ambulances in the city were recently grounded due to the non-availability of petrol cards.
Strydom assured Mkhwebane that the matter with the petrol cards had been resolved.
“We had a challenge with the service provider who was tasked to provide petrol cards to the department. We are currently looking into switching service providers. The department learned that there was a historic debt and the service provider had not been paid. The service provider was appointed by national and not by us (provincial Department of Health).
“Some cards were locked after Christmas, however, the department did make a payment to the service provider before the expected date. Despite the payment, the service still locked the cards. That problem has been sorted out and our ambulances are now back on the road.”
Strydom said the department was able to reach an agreement with some petrol stations to provide petrol to the vehicles in order to ensure that emergency medical services were not halted.
“We now have an agreement with some petrol stations that provide us with fuel. We have reported the matter to the National Treasury office. The ambulances are currently running, as they are an essential service.”
He said that despite the financial crisis the department had faced, it had ensured that it had the staff capacity and resources to attend to emergencies.
“We have increased the number of paramedics to attend to the needs of residents. Our response time to emergencies has also improved. We also procured additional ambulances for some of our districts. We now attend and dispatch an ambulance faster to an emergency than in the past. However, there are still residents who would call for an ambulance even when it is not an emergency,” Strydom said.
Mkhwebane said her office will list the challenges brought to her attention and where the department needs to bring changes.
She assured Kantani and Strydom that her office will monitor the situation at the hospital.
