Covid-19: Eastern Cape doctor describes life-and-death decisions
21 July 2020
In an interview with GroundUp, Dr David Stead, Infectious Diseases specialist and Head of Medicine at Cecilia Makiwane and Frere Hospitals in East London, says the historic problem of an underdeveloped, under-served and less robust health system in Eastern Cape has worsened the burden on healthcare professionals. The system in his province feels the strain and cracks appear much quicker in a system that has already been limping along, broken and understaffed.
As a senior specialist he is responsible for life and death decisions, such as which patients require more than just oxygen masks, which patients to escalate to ICU, the number of patients that can be absorbed in the healthcare facility, supervising junior doctors and the hospital’s Covid-19 committees.
“There’s no doubt that this is the biggest challenge we face in the living memory of being in practice for 20 years … The growth of the pandemic is very intense,” said Stead.
The Eastern Cape has seen the number of confirmed Covid-19 infections nearly double in a two week period, from 29,340 on 1 July to 55,584 on 15 July. Over the same period confirmed Covid-19 infections at Buffalo City Metro where Cecilia Makiwane and Frere Hospitals are located have also doubled from 6,767 and 80 deaths to 13,536 and 153 deaths. (Deaths are probably substantially under-counted too. Between 6 May and 7 July, the Medical Research Council estimated that Buffalo City had nearly 500 “excess” deaths.)