Gauteng health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi has admitted that the closure of Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, which got burnt earlier this year, has gravely affected services as the province battles the third wave.
Mokgethi presented her budget vote for the 2021/2022 financial year on Thursday, which prioritised government’s response to the pandemic.
Her department was allocated a total of R56.5bn and R169.6bn over the medium-term expenditure framework.
Mokgethi said while the province had increased its capacity for admitting patients, infections have also spiked, the latest daily infection sitting at 7,859.
“As a department, we are working around the clock to see to it that the situation goes back to normal and the facility operates fully. Since Charlotte Maxeke is non-operational, we have lost ICU, high care and Covid beds.
"As a department, we acknowledge that this has placed immense pressure on other hospitals that admitted patients from Charlotte Maxeke,” Mokgethi said.
The hospital in Parktown was gutted by fire in April, leading to patients being transferred and referred to other hospitals.
This happened at a time when the provincial government was increasing its capacity to vaccinate and also deal with the treatment of other illnesses such as cancer.
In her budget, Mokgethi announced that R2bn has been set aside for the response to Covid-19. This includes the rollout of the vaccination programme at 330 sites and supporting additional human resources.
A total of R1.5bn has been allocated for posts that were created and had to be filled towards the Covid-19 response.
“Given the magnitude of the pandemic and the burden it imposes on the health system, additional clinical and administrative support was required to augment provincial capacity to adequately respond to the pandemic. In this regard 7,374 posts were created during the financial year 2020/2021 at a cost of more R1.5bn,” Mokgethi said.
There are currently 3,840 Covid-19 beds in the public sector while an additional 747 is ready for activation.
As of Wednesday, the total number of admitted Covid-19 patients was 4,420, with 1,191 in public sector and 3,229 in private institutions.
Mokgethi said 47% of the people over the age of 60 have been registered in the electronic vaccination data system. A total of 202,052 people were vaccinated by Wednesday.
She reported that 88% of the 215,101 health workers had been vaccinated to date.
The Gauteng emergency medical services has been allocated R1.5bn to improve response time.
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