DR FANUS SERFONTEIN, surgeon and showman extraordinaire (this is the charming gentleman who responded this week to the Gauteng decision to keep in place a heart transplant moratorium by saying he would celebrate with another transplant), has succeeded in ensuring his own work gets top billing in the media.
But it may be more appropriate to focus one’s attention on the handful of dedicated medical practitioners who are putting in up to 100 hours a week in hospitals for pay which is pitiable when one considers the skills, experience and value of these professionals.
Their work conditions symbolise the rot at the core of a health system near to collapse. The public health system is short of about 1 000 doctors —no great surprise when most are grossly overworked, horribly underpaid and have to work in hospitals which are a chaotic nightmare of maladministration and wastage. Who would accept this when noticeboards in the same hospitals advertise well-paid British locums where the experience of South African academic hospitals is still
Doctors in the system tell of the collapse of management systems, hospitals where they cannot even count their patients any more, doctors who see 300 patients a day, the wholesale pillage of drugs and equipment …
Few people would doubt the need for the kind of radical reform envisaged by Minister Nkosazana Zuma. But it may also be a good idea to take a deep breath and consider the best way to achieve this.
There is little point in granting equal access to a system in collapse. Nor is there much point in pouring more money into an administrative sieve. Without proper controls in place, all this will mean is that more is
This country has a foundation of public medicine which, though grossly unequal in its distribution, can provide a base for a more equitable system. The first priority of the government should be to shore up this foundation, and prevent its continued decay.
Much can be achieved by stopping the wastage. Before any more money is thrown at the system, there could be substantial improvements funded by better controls of current expenditure.