3294 OPS CANCELLED AT BARA HOSPITAL

3294 operations were cancelled at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital from January 2018 to end-September this year.

This has been revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Bandile Masuku in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

The reasons for cancellation were as follows:

Overbooking - 1262

Shortage of ICU beds - 926

Patient related - 559

Shortage of consumables - 210

Equipment related - 115

Infrastructure related - 312

Most of these factors are avoidable, caused by poor management that overbooks patients or fails to ensure working machinery and surgical supplies. The shortage of ICU beds for post-operative recovery is also of concern.

The high number of cancellations is distressing for both patients and staff and worsens the long waiting times for surgery - more than 6000 patients currently wait more than six months for surgery at this hospital.

According to Masuku, the following steps are being taken to reduce cancelled operations: 

Improving booking systems, indicating the operating time.

Creating ward 7 High Care dependency for surgical department = 22

Performing some of the operations in cluster hospitals.

Saturday elective list (Extra list).

Extending arthroplasty list to 7 to 7 during the week.

Strengthening of cluster systems and outreach.

I hope that better management cuts the unacceptably high cancellation of operations at this major hospital.

Statement by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 27 November 2019