Justin Arenstein and Dumisane Lubisi
Thirteen of South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical companies have frozen medical deliveries to Mpumalanga hospitals after blacklisting the provincial government for failing to pay accounts dating back to October 2000.
The province tried to deny the crisis on Thursday after making small emergency payments to creditors on Wednesday night. The provincial Department of Health’s representative George Mohlomunyane dodged written questions for seven days. The supply of 996 vital medicines and medical supplies has been frozen after the province failed to pay an estimated R23-million owed in November and December. Similar amounts are owed for medical deliveries in October and January. Mohlomunyane said the province was settling its accounts. He denied that the blacklisting had affected medicine stock levels, despite indications that services were being disrupted at some of Mpumalanga’s biggest hospitals.
Rob Ferreira hospital in the provincial capital, Nelspruit, is already experiencing shortages of antibiotics, sterile latex gloves and medical waste disposal bags. The shortages have forced doctors to barter for alternative supplies from neighbouring hospitals, or to use cocktails of more expensive, wider spectrum medicines. Senior hospital staff, who refused to be named for fear of victimisation, warned that the hospital’s theatre will be forced to close unless new supplies of sterile gloves were found soon. “It’s really quite desperate and is having a severe impact on patients,” said one doctor. The shortages aren’t confined to medical supplies. Rob Ferreira is currently forced to refer between 30 and 40 patients to Pretoria hospitals every month because it has no money to fix a urology theatre table or C-Arm equipment used during hip or femur operations. The hospital, which serves roughly 500 000 people, only has one ambulance, which does not have a spare tyre, and only one ambulance crew. Doctors say the hospital should have at least three ambulances on duty and another on standby. Rob Ferreira has been forced to cancel all cataract operations and related treatment because there is no money for replacement lenses for patients.
“We used to do roughly eight operations per week, but people are now simply put on a waiting list. God knows when they’ll ever get the operations, but even if we started today, we have enough people on the list to last for two years,” said a doctor. Equipment shortages at Mpuma-langa’s second biggest hospital, Themba, are being probed by the Human Rights Commission after at least two young boys were crippled and left severely brain damaged during routine surgery.
Zweli Methule and Bheki Mokoena are only 10 and 13 years old but are not expected to live beyond their 26th birthdays after surgery to fix their broken arms went horribly wrong. Themba hospital staff claim that the boys were left paraplegics and brain damaged after an oxygen machine failed in mid-operation. The department is accused of ignoring the boys’ plight and denying them physi- otherapy for four years before a media expos three weeks ago. Social workers visited Methule’s family and promised specialised care if the family promised to stop speaking to the press.
Mohlomunyane also insisted that Methule had received therapy and had been admitted to Themba’s children’s ward for treatment, but refused to provide documentary proof. Human rights commissioner Charlotte McClain is investigating the case. Mpumalanga’s health department is also systematically shutting down its district offices in an attempt to save money. Staff members have been redeployed to clinics and hospitals, but have halted all community work due to budgetary shortages. The district offices were responsible for monitoring and coordinating health projects like home-based care for people with Aids, mobile health clinics and mother and child health care and nutrition. The Malelane district office, which serves the impoverished and densely populated Nkomazi area, was closed down on December 30 when its 18 staff were redeployed 35km away to Shongwe hospital. “We’ve asked staff affected by the longer distances to report to their nearest clinic until we’ve developed a redeployment system,” said Lowveld health district manager Gladness Mathebula. “We pay tens of thousands of rands on rent when there is space for us at clinics and hospitals.” She confirmed that district offices in KaBokweni and Nelspruit would also be closed. African Eye News Service