REPORT REVEALS DEVASTATING IMPACT OF HOSPITAL STRIKE

At least two million fewer patients visited Gauteng state hospitals and clinics as a result of the recent three week long civil service strike.

I have calculated this from figures in the recently released second quarter performance report of the Gauteng Health department that covers the July to September period.

It shows the devastating impact of the strike.

Instead of an expected 2.9 million patient visits during this period, hospital outpatient  departments saw only 1.9 million patients, and only 8.1 million patients visited clinics instead of the anticipated 9.5 million.

Resignations have worsened the skilled staff shortage, according to the report.

Hospitals are short of 2102 nurses, 1930 doctors, 370 specialists and 277 pharmacists - 4679 vacancies in total. One in three doctor posts (33%) are vacant, as are 41% of pharmacist posts.

Emergency ambulance response times are abysmal - only 45% of calls are responded to within 15 minutes instead of 80% as per international standards. Johannesburg and Tshwane could not even provide figures for response times, which shows how badly run they are.

Only 78% of children were vaccinated against Rota Virus as against the targeted 90% due to a huge amount of money owed to Biovac which led them to soft lock the vaccines account.

While there are some bright spots in this report, such as 3 073 dentures fitted to old age pensioners by final year dental students, the overall picture shows that new Health MEC Ntombi Mekgwe has much to do to fix this department.

Statement by Jack Bloom, MPL, DA Gauteng Health Spokesman, November 3 2010

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter