Provincial’s power woes squeeze Nelson Mandela Bay hospitals

Electricity woes at Provincial Hospital in Gqeberha are putting pressure on Nelson Mandela Bay’s other state medical facilities, which are having to  take on additional theatre cases as a result of the Mount Croix centre’s situation.    

Three weeks ago, a power outage hit Provincial after a contractor severed an underground cable, resulting in the suspension of all surgery work.

While that problem has been attended to, more issues around the old and poorly maintained electrical network have emerged, meaning theatre patients are being referred to Livingstone and Dora Nginza hospitals.

As The Herald reported in July, these hospitals are facing a number of challenges themselves, including a lack of equipment to perform surgeries, shortages of staff and infrastructural issues.     

A Gqeberha doctor who works in state hospitals and declined to be named, confirmed patients in need of urgent treatment were being referred from Provincial to the Bay’s other state hospitals.

He said the process, referred to as “decanting”, did put more pressure on the receiving hospitals and personnel but was the best way to deal with the situation at Provincial.

“Patients with more serious health problems who are in urgent need of medical procedures are diverted to other hospitals — in this case, Livingstone and Dora Nginza,” he said.

“Those at Provincial with less serious conditions, or minor planned procedures, will have to wait until the hospital can accommodate them.

“Patients with less serious conditions at the other hospitals will also be rescheduled, because they have to move to the back of the line while more serious cases take preference.”

He said from his understanding the issues underlying the decanting were receiving attention and should be rectified within the next two weeks.

Gqeberha resident Tania Shrosbree, a regular visitor to Provincial Hospital, said that as recently as Monday the supply of electricity to the hospital  was sporadic.

“The main problem is in the operating theatre where it seems the wiring is old and has not been maintained and has to be recertified,” she said. 

“The consequence is they have suspended all surgery at Provincial and are referring all their cases across to Livingstone Hospital.

“But the consequence of that is a big backlog is developing at Livingstone. 

“I know about this because I have a family member who is waiting for a procedure to be done.”

The Eastern Cape health department said on Wednesday that an “electrical revamp” at Provincial was under  way and that some patients were being referred out, but stressed  that the system was working well and there were no treatment holdups.

But according to Shrosbree, doctors and nurses at Provincial and Livingstone, which were gravely understaffed, were struggling.

“Their professionalism and care is outstanding but there seems to be no support from management.

“We have tried talking to [the] administration to get them to at least come out of their offices to see the chaos, but nothing has happened.

“We need more funding, more staff and on the ground management.”

Responding to questions about admissions and the supply of electricity to theatre, a senior nurse said on Wednesday: “We do have problems with electricity in theatre sometimes but at the moment we have electricity.”

Health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth’s spokesperson, Mkhululi Ndamase, said while there were challenges at Provincial, the department was addressing them and things were going smoothly.

“Disruption to theatre work has been minimised through the utilisation of existing theatre capacity in our other facilities,” he said.

“We have capacity at Dora Nginza Hospital that we have not even used so far.”

On July 24, Ndamase said the department would send an infrastructure team to Provincial Hospital the following day to inspect the aged electrical network which was causing regular outages.

Asked on Wednesday about this visit, he said that “management gave the infrastructure team more time to resolve the ageing infrastructure properly to avoid future disruptions”.

“The electrical repairs at PE Provincial Hospital are under way.

“The contractor is expected to complete its work soon.

“The contractor is now busy servicing transformers and operations.

“There is no backlog associated with the move [to refer some Provincial patients to other state hospitals].

“Two theatres being used were not operational before.”

Ndamase said some eye operations were being done at Uitenhage Provincial Hospital.

“This is just an expansion of activities.

“We have been operating on eyes at Uitenhage Provincial Hospital since April.

“We have just expanded an established service.”

He said the health department itself would oversee all repairs at Provincial.

“We will soon be issuing a completion certificate for the work after completing quality checks.”

Ndamase said Provincial Hospital was not a standalone institution but fell under the management of Livingstone Hospital.

“It’s that management that has been and still is managing the contingency systems to ensure continuity of services despite the electrical revamp programme.

“The theatres used at Livingstone were part of institutional contingency plans.

“There is no undue reduction of Livingstone site theatre activity.”

The DA’s Jane Cowley said the electricity problem at Provincial was part of a broader crisis facing Bay hospitals.

“We need sufficient funds to be allocated and proper use to be made of those funds, including securing electricity supply to ensure operating theatres work.

“Related to this, creditors must be paid so all necessary medical equipment can be acquired.”

She said that, instead, the Eastern Cape health department was wasting funds.

“It spends huge amounts of money on noncore projects like fixing infrastructure which the department of public works should be fixing, and paying salaries to the 14% unverified health administration posts — which is alone costing R2.5bn a year.”

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