Pressure continues to pile up on health workers in Gauteng hospitals. This is despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement that at least 1 200 beds have been added in the province. SANDF medics have also been enlisted to assist.
On Sunday, the province accounted for 66% of new cases in the country with close to 11 500 hospitalisations. Daily infections remain high in Gauteng and hospitals are running out of space.
Thelle Mogoerane Hospital in Vosloorus is among them. Rich Sicina (36) has worked at the hospital for almost a decade. He says two wards have been converted into COVID-19 wards.
“Patients under investigation are flooding casualty, we have gone to another one as well to convert it, the way we are moving, it’s scary, it looks like we are going to eventually turn the entire hospital into a COVID-19 hospital,” says Sicina.
Adding to the misery, non-COVID patients are being discharged before time to make way for COVID-19 patients. “The aim is to make sure they are in a bed, next to a bed that has an oxygen point next to it.”
Difficult decisions have to be made in the fully-packed wards. “We even go as far as writing ‘no resus…’ on your letter, because literally there is nothing we can, the only we thing can do is if we take you to ICU, but which ICU are we going to take you to if that ICU is full because of COVID-19?,” says Sicina.
Pressure continues to pile up on health workers in Gauteng hospitals:
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday announced that at least 1 200 beds have been added in Gauteng.
“The Solidarity Fund has provided R16 million to support the recruitment and placement of additional nurses in Gauteng hospitals to complement the military health team that has been deployed.”
But unions are not impressed.
“It’s addressing what’s gonna happen in future, it’s not a relief with current measures. They have got agency nurses that they normally work with…why not rope in those nurses on a contract with the government? That would be an immediate relief on the system,” says Denosa Gauteng’s Bongani Mazibuko.
The South African Medical Association’s Dr Angelique Coetzee says: It’s an HR problem. If there isn’t nurses and doctors trained at the right level, it’s not going to help if you are running out of oxygen because this is what we are experiencing in the private sector with home-based oxygen – 80% we can treat at home; 30% needs oxygen. If I can’t give them oxygen – either they are going to die or they need to go to hospital. We know there is no enough beds. So, the prudent thing to do is to make sure there is enough oxygen and that’s something that needs to happen at government level,” says Coetzee.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announces SA’s move to Level 4:
But unions are not impressed. “It’s addressing what’s going to happen in the future, it’s not a relief with current measures, they have got agency nurses that they normally work with, why not rope in those nurses on a contract with the government? That would be an immediate relief on the system,” says the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa’s Bongani Mazibuko.
South African Medical Association Dr. Angelique Coetzee says it is a human resource problem. “If there isn’t nurses and doctors trained at the right level, it’s not going to help, if you are running out of oxygen, because this is what we are experiencing in the private sector with home-based oxygen, 80% we can treat at home, 30% needs oxygen. If I can’t give them oxygen either they are going to die or they need to go to the hospital, we know there are not enough beds. So, the prudent thing is to make sure there is enough oxygen and that’s something that needs to happen at the government level.”
Meanwhile, radiation treatment has started at Charlotte Maxeke hospital’s oncology unit.
Below are the latest coronavirus stats in SA:
Loading…
