COPE IN MPUMALANGA CALLS FOR MINISTER
MOTSOALEDI’S INTERVENTION IN THE COLLAPSED PROVINCIAL HEALTH SYSTEM
BY BRIAN KAJENGO
COPE in Mpumalanga calls for the minister of health,
Dr. Aron Motsoaledi to intervene in the collapsed provincial health systems.
The regional chairperson of COPE in
Enkangala Comrade Mathews Masilela is one of the leaders on COPE in the
province who took the pain of exposing the situation amongst many.
“The health department in Mpumalanga has failed in terms of rendering
the proper health services to the society of this province. There are no
medication at hospitals and clinics, shortage of staff which mostly led to
patients having forced to leave without being attended to,” said Comrade
Masilela.
He said what was more painful was that the health
MEC Dikeledi Mahlangu was earning a fat salary every month-end while she was
not productive.
Comrade Masilela gave examples of health
facilities such as the Moloto Clinic that was operating 24 hours but suddenly
changed to only eight hours.
He pointed out that even the community
became so overwhelmed with the problems at the clinic so much that they even
titled it a “funeral House”.
COPE knows however that the problem is so
vast in the province it will need some serious intervention by the national
government in order to turn the strategies around.
It was recently reported that patients at
the Rob Ferreira hospital, one that has always has been referred to as the
third biggest in the province, slept on the passages while MEC Mahlangu’s
spokesman, Ronnie Masilela denied what later appeared in pictures in a national
daily newspaper.
As if that embarrassment was not enough,
the department investigated allegations that a foreign doctor at the Tintswalo
hospital in Acornhoek had probably practiced without the necessary
qualifications since the year 2008 only to let him off the hook by allowing his
immediate transfer to a Gauteng
hospital.
COPE previously reported on patients who
were found sleeping on the floor at the Mapulaneng hospital in Bushbuckridge
where the hospital had never had water for quite some considerable days.
The problems spread to other hospitals such
as Shongwe in Nkomazi, Temba in KaBokwen – to mention but a few.
The public Protector, Madam Thuli Madonsela
once conducted an investigation that supported our allegations and instructed
Premier David Mabuza and his Cabinet to rectify the situation but that did not
help anyway.
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