The MEC for Health in Mpumalanga, Sasekani Manzini conducted an oversight visit to Rob Ferreira Hospital and finally responded on claims made by the Democratic Alliance (DA).
The DA issued a statement claiming that pregnant women and mothers with newly born babies at Rob Ferreira hospital shared beds and are forced to use dirty toilets, and the department was also failing to provide several necessities such as linen, pillows and sheets. The DA further said that the department was making heavily pregnant women to walk a long distance to open files in the hospital.
DA leader in Mpumalanga and spokesperson on Health, Jane Sithole said they have since written to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) asking them to investigate inhumane conditions at the maternity ward of Rob Ferreira hospital.
According to information and pictures gathered by the DA, toilets at the maternity ward of Rob Ferreira hospital, which is one of the biggest hospitals in Mpumalanga, are not working and patients must bring their own bed sheets and pillows. “How can it be allowed that the toilets in maternity ward are not working? Mothers must leave their babies to go find a toilet somewhere in the hospital?” Sithole asked.
Health spokesperson, Dumsani Malamule said that during the oversight visit by MEC Manzini it was discovered that the allegations levelled by the DA are not entirely true as stated in their media statement. The MEC discovered that linen is being provided in the hospital. She also discovered that in some days, the hospital gets overcrowded because most people bypass their primary healthcare facilities where they live and come straight to Rob Ferreira without being referred to.
“The hospital is, however, managing the situation despite the allegations that patients are sleeping on mattresses,” Malamule said. “The MEC would also like to state that some of the pictures posted on social media displaying patients sleeping on mattress are old pictures, including the one that shows a room that is extremely dirty. The picture showing the dirty room is a room which can only be accessed by DPWRT when they are conducting toilets maintenance to unlock blockages,” he added.
Manzini said that they urge people that they must first consult in the primary healthcare facilities where the PHC will determine if there is a need to be referred to the hospital. “All PHC facilities are able to assist pregnant women to deliver, especially those women that are able to deliver normally,” said MEC Manzini. “I have done a walkabout at the hospital and even spoken to some of the patients in the maternity ward and none of them expressed any dissatisfaction about the service rendered by the maternity ward. It is quiet wrong for the DA to mislead our people, giving them a wrong impression about the hospital.
“As a department we are fully committed in giving our people a decent service hence the life of each and every patient is very important to us including that of pregnant women and their babies,” she added
MEC Manzini further said, “During my talk with some of the patients I was told that they do not walk long distances as they receive their files in the maternity ward thus dismissing the allegations by the DA,” she said. It has been reported that Rob Ferreira hospital has 28 beds in the post natal ward and 36 in the nursery. It delivers almost 26 patients per day of which 70 percent are referrals from the PHC facilities. “I would like inform our people that Rob Ferreira is a tertiary hospital, and it is meant to manage complicated cases referred by other hospitals and clinics around. All pregnant women with no complications can be managed at community health centres (CHC) level and district hospitals. None the less we are here to serve them and that we will always intervene where challenges emerge,” she concluded.
