The South African Human Rights Commission(SAHRC) has called on the Department of Health in Gauteng to allocate more resources to the Tembisa hospital, East of Johannesburg to deal with the overcrowding at the facility.
The SAHRC visited the hospital on Monday for an inspection of the facility.
This follows the deaths of 10 babies at the hospital after an outbreak of the deadly Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria in November and December last year.
Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) are bacteria that normally live in intestines.
These bacteria are harmless when they’re in your intestines but if they spread to another part of your body, they can cause severe infections. The risk is higher if a person is sick.
The bacteria are resistant to antibiotics and causes infections in the bloodstream, lungs and urinary tract – including pneumonia and meningitis.
Tembisa hospital is overcrowded and under staffing has been named as a factor that led to the spread of the bacteria.
HRC Provincial Manager, Buang Jones says the Department needs to have a holistic plan on how to address these outbreaks.
Jones says: “We are told that Tembisa Hospital has the highest number of deliveries after Chris Hani Baragwanath. This to us says the Department should review how they deploy resources to Tembisa which has seen exponential increase in the number of people.”
