At least 22 health facilities across three districts in the Free State are battling with staff shortages, infrastructural issues, shortages of medicines and poor TB infection control among others.
This was revealed in a report by community-led clinic monitoring organisation Ritshidze Project, which monitors South Africa’s HIV and TB response and health systems strengthening.
The report has also found that the state of healthcare facilities forces ARV patients to have unnecessary trips to clinics.
“There are long waiting times in the facilities, where on average patients wait for 5 hours in queues before they see your professional nurses. About 79% of facility managers we interviewed also indicated that there was not enough clinical, non-clinical facilities. Even the testimonies that patients shared today, a lot indicated that they are waiting in queues for a long time because there are not enough staff members,” says Project Assessor Ndivhuwo Rambau .
#Ritshidze data shows only 36% of patients think there are always enough staff to meet their needs + 94% of facility managers think there are not enough staff. @fs_health needs to fill current vacancies + hire 10% more nurses #FreeStateHealth pic.twitter.com/dliU3PZkT3
— Ritshidze (@RitshidzeSA) September 9, 2021
Meanwhile, Health Minister Joe Phaahla says during the 2019/20 financial year, upgrades to the tune of R1.5 billion were made to public hospitals. This came out in a written Parliamentary reply.
Phaahla says this is a combination of rehabilitation, renovations, refurbishment, upgrades and additions. All nine provinces benefitted from these upgrades.
The upgrades were done for hospital projects funded under the Provincial Equitable Share as well as the Health Facility Revitalisation Grant.
