The new Mpumalanga legislature complex diverted funds from other departments, leading to a critical shortage of supplies
Justin Arenstein
Mpumalanga doctors are being forced to operate on critically injured patients by torchlight and without much of the medicine or other equipment they need.
Even basics such as sterile gloves, swabs, and intravenous drips are unavailable at major hospitals due to apparent financial mismanagement.
Nurses at Rob Ferreira hospital in Nelspruit are expected to keep intensive care patients alive by manually pumping air into their lungs during regular power blackouts.
The hospital is equipped with ageing electronic ventilators and other critical-care equipment but has been unable to convince the provincial government to repair its emergency back-up generators for five months.
”It’s a labour of love. This area regularly suffers power cuts because of thunderstorms and flooding, but the faulty generator takes up to three hours to start. Even when it’s going at full power, it barely produces enough power to run the hospital’s lights, never mind the really important equipment,” said a doctor, who was too scared to be named after Rob Ferreira’s top management was charged with gross misconduct for complaining earlier this year.
”Neither the public works nor health departments have money, so we make do with what we have. But some operations are just too complicated to do using torchlight or makeshift equipment.”
The crisis deepened even further this week when 15 of South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical companies froze deliveries of all chronic medicines to Mpumalanga because the province has repeatedly failed to pay a R25-million overdue bill.
The boycott is the second this year. A freeze on delivery of 996 vital medi-cines in February forced the province to pay off a R23-million bill but, pharmaceutical companies say, the province hasn’t made a single payment since.
Mpumalanga’s pharmaceutical director Amos Masongo confirmed a ”cash-flow” crisis, but declined to comment further and referred all queries to Health MEC Sibongile Manana. Manana insisted she was too busy to comment.
Disgruntled construction and security workers have meanwhile threatened to blockade the inauguration of Mpumalanga’s lavish R650-million legislature complex on Thursday unless the government immediately settles an outstanding R20-million bill.
The complex, built in defiance of national treasury advice that it was too extravagant for a rural province, is blamed for much of Mpumalanga’s financial ailments.
It was to cost R120-million when announced three years ago, but costs rapidly soared to R650-million when a dodgy pyramid-like funding scheme was ruled illegal. The complex’s imported marble floors, hand-carved hardwood doors and a seven-storey domed legislature chamber in landscaped gardens above a waterfall on the Crocodile and Nel rivers have prompted locals to dub it ”the palace”.
Mpumalanga Director General Stanley Soko was not immediately available for comment, but has publicly admitted that the province illegally used budgets earmarked for basic services such as HIV/Aids programmes, social pensions and emergency flood relief programmes to pay for the building.
”We still owe a total of R84-million, but our budget for this project is exhausted. We don’t have any more money. We have asked our big brothers in the national treasury for a bail-out, but still haven’t heard from them,” said Soko.
National Finance Ministry representative Moeti Kgamanyane said he had been asked not to comment on the issue, while the treasury’s inter-governmental director Ismael Momonait repeatedly dodged questions over the past week and finally promised to issue a statement by Friday outlining the national government’s proposed intervention.
Neither Momonait nor his deputy, Jan Hattingh, were prepared to confirm or deny speculation that the treasury might issue a Section 100 notice effectively taking control of Mpumalanga’s finances.
Mpumalanga’s poorest rural patients have borne the brunt of the apparent financial mismanagement in the province.
Supplies are so low at some hospitals that nurses at Mpumalanga’s largest hospital in Philadelphia are shredding linen for use as dressings and babies’ nappies, and patients at Piet Retief’s hospital were recently asked to donate coal for the furnaces, and advised to bring their own linen and food because local suppliers had cut deliveries.
Rob Ferreira staff are terrified of contracting HIV due to a shortage of sterile gloves. Mpumalanga has the second-highest reported incidence of Aids in South Africa, but the only gloves staff have managed to barter from surrounding hospitals are all extra large, endangering even the most skilled surgeons and nurses who say they feel ”ham-fisted” in them.
All six of Rob Ferreira’s senior doctors have resigned and will leave by the end of June.
Rob Ferreira superintendent Dr Thys von Mollendorff confirmed the hospital was ”in serious crisis” but stressed he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Von Mollendorff is one of five senior managers who were threatened with dismissal and charged with gross misconduct two months ago after they allowed trained community volunteers into the hospital to counsel rape survivors and distribute free anti-Aids drugs, clothes and toys to child rape victims. African Eye News Service