President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday praised the management of the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, saying he was proud of the change in the institution.
“What has struck me most is the style of management of this hospital, which I think has brought about the change in the life of the hospital,” he told staff and journalists after touring the country’s largest hospital.
“What the colleagues are doing here talks to our vision. We said we want to do things differently. It talks to that vision, it talks to our slogan ‘working together we can do more’… and it sounds just wonderful. We are very happy indeed.”
Chief executive of the hospital, Johanna More, sat alongside Gauteng health minister Qedani Mahlangu, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, Zuma and Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane.
The experience, according to Zuma, was markedly different from before the hospital underwent the first phase of a much needed face-lift.
“It is a hospital that over a period for a variety of reasons got tired, if you came here a while ago you will leave this hospital depressed,” he said.
The second phase, described by Motsoaledi as “repairing a ship in motion”, would begin in the latter part of the year. This would involve reviving the hospital’s existing infrastructure.
Both personnel and patients could not contain their enthusiasm as they broke out in song, calling out to “Msholozi” and clamouring to get close to him to take a picture, touch the man or simply catch a glimpse of him in the flesh.
“I just want to see him, not on TV, not in the newspaper, here, in front of me,” said Martha September, a patient who was in her bed when she heard the commotion outside and came to investigate.
When she discovered the first citizen was inspecting the hospital, she followed the throng of people in her nightdress and a silky white gown.
Nurses were armed with their camera phones, hoping to get close enough to take a picture.
Zuma waved and smiled serenely, stopping sporadically to shake the hand of an onlooker.
He toured new, privately sponsored wards and the hospital’s revamped trauma facility.
“This is a wonderful experience indeed, it leaves one with a good heart, good taste. You feel you are in a country that is functioning,” he said after the tour.
Motsoaledi said progress at the hospital thus far was just the beginning.
“… We are only 20% there.”
More work was needed to get to where the government wanted the institution to be.
Mahlangu told journalists the province was ready to welcome guests for the 2010 World Cup.
Plans for 24-hour clinics and pharmacies are in the pipeline.
The province was also getting new ambulances and enlisting the private sector to help deal with scores of visitors expected in Gauteng.
Zuma came under fire recently from both opposition parties and South African society at large for fathering a child out of wedlock, but the scenes of jubilation at the hospital showed only people enamoured by their president. –Sapa