Task teams to address KZN hospital challenges

NATIONAL Department of Health teams are to be deployed to identify and address challenges at five KZN hospitals.

The teams will visit Ngwelezana, RK Khan, Murchison, Northdale, and Ladysmith hospitals.

‘This planned initiative was formally communicated to all provinces, with a request to identify five facilities per province to form part of this exercise.

‘Support teams will be made up of officials from the national Department of Health, who will visit and inspect the identified hospitals,’ the KZN department said.

They refuted claims by the Democratic Alliance (DA) that the five hospitals are to be placed under administration.

The allegations have been described as ‘false and deliberately misleading’.

‘This initiative is a response by government to improve the provision of healthcare services, with a particular focus on addressing challenges such as waiting times, staff shortages, availability of hospital beds, overcrowding, and the clearance of patient backlogs, particularly at the casualty areas.

‘These support teams will work closely with their counterparts at provincial, district and facility levels and will present reports to the provincial heads of department.’

The DA said the task team will be sent to ‘improve years of appalling services to patients’.

‘The hospitals earmarked for intervention are indeed some of the most problematic facilities in the province with staff shortages, long queues, rudeness by staff, poor management of patient complaints and medicine shortages.

‘Other challenges include supply chain irregularities, overtime discrepancies and broken equipment.

‘Regrettably, they are not the only facilities in the province that require intervention and the DA believes that this list should also include Addington, Stanger Hospital and St Mary’s in Mariannhill, which was recently taken over by the Department of Health.

‘While the DA has been able to confirm that a task team, led by a Dr A Pillay and Dr Makhanya, will be arriving in the province shortly, we do not have any information around the starting date or the duration of the administration period,’ said DA KZN Health spokesperson, Dr Imran Keeka.

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