Public hospitals in the Eastern Cape need R450m to replace life-saving equipment.
Former Health MEC Dr Pumza Dyantyi made the admission in response to questions in the Bhisho legislature.
She said all state hospitals had backlogs in replacing lifesupport equipment such as ventilators, anesthetic machines, incubators, dialysis machines and ventilators used by emergency medical response teams, as well as specialist pediatric equipment.
The backlogs also include monitoring equipment, diagnostic equipment like scales, blood pressure meters and blood glucose meters, colonoscopy machines and vital signs monitors.
The department is also running behind schedule in replacing ultrasound and X-ray machines, CT scanners and microscopes.
Dyantyi said the target was to replace all ageing equiment by the 2020/2021 financial year.
“The replacement cycles are continuous and never-ending.”
She said critical medical equipment would be replaced in the current financial year.
Port Elizabeth’s Livingstone Hospital has been hit by a number of high-profile equipment failures, including a microscope needed for surgery.
According to the response provided by Dyantyi, the department has started the procurement process for a new microscope, but it would have to rent one for the time being to ensure that surgery could go ahead.
She said it hoped the procurement process would be concluded by the end of August.
According to Dyantyi, it would cost R11m to replace the new microscope and this would include a R4m maintenance plan.At Dora Nginza Hospital, medical personnel raised the alarm earlier this year over dire equipment shortages, including two blood-pressure monitors to be shared among 50 patients and problems with the facility’s X-ray machines.
Over the past year the treatment of cancer patients has also been compromised by the radiation machine breaking down several times.
Thieves also stole the flexiscope used to treat patients with kidney stones.
In a damning report on the public health system in the Eastern Cape published last week, the Treatment Action Campaign stated that apart from equipment shortages, the infrastructure of health facilities in the province was also in disrepair.
“Facilities are small, aged, and run-down, leading to issues of overcrowding, a lack of dignity and privacy, and having an impact on the effectiveness of TB infection control measures. At times facilities face water shortages and no electricity,” the report states.
According to a survey by the TAC, only 41% of facilities had enough room and 15% of facilities were not clean.
It also found that two-thirds of facilities in the province did not have clean, functioning toilets and no toilet paper.
TAC Eastern Cape chairman Mziwethu Faku said tuberculosis was one of the biggest problems in the province.
He said it had found compelling evidence that there was a lack of TB infection control measures in clinics in the province.
According to the TAC report, it found that most facilities surveyed performed well in ensuring windows were kept open. The report, however, stated that more than half of the facilities had waiting rooms that were too small and about half did not screen patients for TB symptoms and separate them from others.
Health spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha said the department had received the full report from the TAC and would engage with it and other stakeholders.