Infrastructure issues on agenda for EC health MEC Sindiswa Gomba

The department of health in the Eastern Cape is planning to tackle its infrastructure problems by refurbishing key institutions in the province.

The statement was made by health MEC Sindiswa Gomba during her policy speech, in which she also conceded that the Covid-19 pandemic had exposed major challenges faced in the department.

She said old and neglected infrastructure would be attended to, and acknowledged that the department would miss some of the deadlines it has set for the first quarter of the 2020/2021 financial year as a result of having to respond to the Covid-19 crisis.

“We have ensured that the alterations and refurbishments we did responded to the long-held view that our facilities are dilapidated.

“However, our interventions as a result of the disaster do not exonerate our responsibility to look into others as well.

“Our focus was based on developing the response strategy and setting up such systems that will be sustainable for a much longer period,” Gomba said.

The department of public works has spent more than R50m on the refurbishment of hospitals in the province since the pandemic hit the Eastern Cape in March.

Gomba said the dilapidated infrastructure had remained the elephant in the room.

She announced that planned projects for the medium-term expenditure framework included:

• Rebuilding collapsed sections of Lady Grey Hospital;
• A new clinic in Cebe village, near Centane;
• Building of clinics in Xhora Mouth and Rabula Village; and
• Increased space at the Motherwell, Kwazakhele and New Brighton clinics.

During her speech in Bhisho, she also announced some of the department’s efforts in fighting Covid-19, including increasing staff.

“As we speak, our province is sitting in third position with a total number 2,459 cases and 53 deaths, with 1,036 recoveries and counting.

“The human resource to fight this pandemic necessitated an appointment of 822 nurses contracted for a year and placement of 20 Cuban doctors throughout the province,” she said.

Meanwhile, DA MPL Bobby Stevenson tabled a motion in the legislature — which was accepted — to use disaster management volunteers to assist with implementing social distancing in what he called “queues of death”.

Stevenson said the motion followed pictures showing people squashed together in queues to collect either grants or food parcels.

Health superintended-general Dr Thobile Mbengashe had identified Sassa offices in Nelson Mandela Bay as one of four drivers of Covid-19 infections in the city.

Stevenson said: “These queues can potentially become super-spreaders of the Covid-19 virus and end up becoming queues of death.

“I requested that the department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) engage with municipalities in regard to the recruitment and appointment of disaster risk management volunteers, so that lives may be saved in the Eastern Cape.

“Municipalities are empowered to use disaster management volunteers in terms of chapter 7 of the Disaster Risk Management Act.

“These disaster risk management volunteers should be able to explain, engage, and encourage social distancing in the various queues that one finds throughout the province,” Stevenson said.