South Africa’s health system is hurtling from crisis to crisis. The country has a minister of health who deftly sidesteps accusations of incompetence, flatly denies drinking at hospitals and fires her competent deputy, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. But the problems are not just concentrated at the top. They are more basic and affect the lives of children.
This week The Star exposed the shortage of baby cribs at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. The newspaper ran the story with a picture of three babies who were placed in a cardboard box instead of cribs.
The national department of health and the Gauteng department of health convened to appoint a task team to investigate the conditions at the maternity and neo-natal section of the hospital.
According to a press release issued by Sibani Mngadi from the national health department and Zanele Mngadi from the Gauteng department of health, the hospital management conceded that placing babies in a cardboard box was wrong. The hospital chiefs indicated that they were not aware that cardboard boxes had been used to accommodate babies and this should never have happened.
The hospital, the biggest in Africa, has 119 bassinettes in the neo-natal section. A minimum of 150 are needed. At R2 000 per crib, the shortfall of 39 will cost less than R70 000. This amounts to just about a month’s salary of the current Director General of Health, Thami Mseleku.
The task team claimed that the management of the hospital had ‘failed to prioritise the core functions of the hospital in the allocation of about R1,1-billion annual budget allocated to the hospitalâ€.
To improve the management at the hosital, the Gauteng department of health will be sending in a team of experts to put in place a ‘turnaround strategy for the hospital to ensure better management, better use of human and financial resources and the procurement of much-needed equipmentâ€.