Union defends nurses' cardboard box improvisation, says government long knew of incubator shortage

The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) in the North West has hit back at the provincial health department's reaction to reports of newborn babies being placed in boxes at Mahikeng Provincial Hospital, labelling it nothing more than an attempt to throw burdened health workers under the bus.

North West health MEC Madoda Sambatha on Friday expressed his shock after images emerged on social media showing newborn babies in the hospital's neonatal section sleeping in cardboard boxes instead of incubators or crib beds. Sambatha said arrangements were being made to send additional cribs to the hospital and that an investigation into the matter would be launched.

Denosa on Monday took exception with Sambatha's stance.

“As a matter of context, the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the hospital, which is the ICU for infants soon after their birth, has been short of 20 incubators and cribs for a long period of time now, with no sign of these coming,” it said.

“The unit, which had more than 55 babies on the day in question, has 25 incubators, looked after by only seven nurses.”

“The matter of procuring the incubators and cribs has been with procurement for a long time. Denosa would like to see the MEC focusing on those who are supposed to ensure the incubators and cribs are procured, which are not the nurses as that is not their function.”

The union said as Mahikeng provides the highest level of care in the Ngaka Modiri Molema district, the only options available to healthcare workers in such situations is to turn the patients away, keep them in an inappropriate unit or refer them to facilities of equal level of care which are two hours away.

“Denosa is concerned that the act of being surprised by the management of this incident is nothing but a mere argument of convenience and yet another attempt to throw under the bus the dedicated and hardworking healthcare workers, who are always forced to improvise under these constant conditions that are characterised by reduction of budgets for procurement of equipment and resources in healthcare facilities.

“The only investigation that is needed is why it has taken this long for the procurement of these essential incubators and cribs when indications of their urgent need was made a long time ago.”

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