It is disappointing that the biggest hospital in the country keeps making headlines for failing to delivery proper healthcare. Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto once again made the news on Sunday for cancelling booked surgeries in the past three weeks because of a shortage of clean linen.
The shortage that resulted in the operations being called off was apparently due to broken equipment at the facility's laundry, said DA Gauteng shadow health MEC Jack Bloom. He added that doctors were frustrated with the cancellation as the hospital has a backlog, and some patients had been waiting for years to have hip and knee surgery.
Hospital spokesperson Nkosiyethu Mazibuko said the facility had experienced “challenges” caused by a boiler malfunctioning. “However, the hospital has measures in place such as disposable linen for the scheduled operations,” Mazibuko said.
It's upsetting that for the past three weeks the hospital cancelled operations due to laundry machines not working. It’s only now that they tell us they have contingency measures in place. Why did it take a whole three weeks to have a plan B in place? They could have easily stocked more disposable linen on the day and carried out their duties while the machines were being fixed.
The department regularly battles with minor problems that could have been swiftly fixed and that sends a message of lack of compassion and carelessness for the patients they serve.
Chis Hani Baragwanath is the biggest hospital in the country, with other hospitals referring patients there because it has more specialists. There are patients who wait for years to have surgeries because of long lists, and to have those cancelled at the last minute is just not fair.
The hospital had no bread for two weeks in March because the provincial health department had failed to pay the supplier. Staff ended up taking their own money to buy food for hungry patients.
Surely, the people in charge of paying a food contract for a hospital cannot be caught up in red tape as it is a crucial service that should be prioritised to avoid such embarrassing episodes.
The department cannot battle to run a hospital. That is unacceptable. It must get its act together and stop treating the people who rely on public healthcare with disdain.
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