Vosloorus hospital staff get to tell MEC of their problems

Staff at the Thelle Mogoerane Hospital got a chance to tell Gauteng MEC of health Gwen Ramokgopa of the problems at the facility which have made it to make headlines.

Ramakgopa visited the regional hospital in Vosloorus on Thursday after a new security company started providing services to the health facility.

Her department was forced to divert all ambulances to other hospitals in the area after a strike by security guards turned ugly earlier this week‚ making staff to forcefully remove management complaining about an unsafe working environment.

While Ramakgopa seemed pleased with the restored security at the hospital‚ the staff still had some serious internal problems they raised with the MEC.

“There is a shortage of nurses. [Take] this department here‚ it is an 11-bed department that actually requires that we have a one-to-one relationship with a patient. But unfortunately at the moment we find ourselves having one [staff] to two [patients]. Also the type of nurses that we are using… we are still using enrolled nurses instead of professional nurses while this is a critical area and it’s a specialised unit.

“Because of cost and shortage‚ we find ourselves compromising the patient care‚” said Cebile Mbongwa‚ one of the medical staff responsible for the intensive care unit (ICU).

Another area which had serious problems was the kitchen where patients' food is prepared. Food service supervisor Alice Mlangeni told Ramakgopa of a pipe blockage which caused problems for the kitchen for three days. It was later fixed.

“Sometimes we run out of stock… We want things to be always right so that we can give patients quality service. As we speak‚ patient food is there but we are lacking on starch. We also do not have [fresh] vegetables. We are using frozen vegetables‚” Mlangeni explained.

Mlangeni further told the MEC that if there were any shortages she reported the matter to the manager who then escalated the issue. But she complained that the response had been slow.

“I don’t know who of the bosses is responsible for the delay. But all I can say is that it is slow… We love our hospital. When we see patients suffering we are not happy. When we bring reports to you‚ please act quickly… This hospital is beautiful but when we struggle about many things‚ we think about [the time] back at the old hospital. We think that at the old hospital we worked better than here‚” Mlangeni added.

Senior professional nurse Cynthia Ntombela said about the neonatal ICU that an uncomfortable structural design of the unit did not make them work efficiently. She pleaded with the MEC to help hire more professional nurses‚ at least 10 to 15 to cope with the amount of work.

This was Ramakgopa’s third visit at the troubled hospital in 10 days. She has instructed management to have multilateral meetings to address some of the problems in procurement‚ staffing and other issues raised by civil society to the department.

Despite the challenges Ramakgopa said: “I’m happy that the services are back to normal.”