R13m plan to ensure safe winter season
Focus on troubled O R Tambo and Alfred Nzo
THE health department has set aside R13million to ensure the safety of thousands of initiates during the winter season.
Spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said the funding will go towards contracting general practitioners and nurses, vehicle lease, procuring surgical and general medical supplies needed for management of complications, protective clothing and accommodation for monitoring teams.
“We will hire 35 vehicles for 45 days this season.”
The vehicles will be distributed to districts according to need, Kupelo added.
Districts will complement the hired vehicles with vehicles from the government fleet, should the need arise.
“Two designated medical officers [DMOs] will be assigned per vehicle, taking into account the planned teams and vehicles per district.
“DMOs are clinically trained, such as professional nurses who will, when visiting the initiates, be able to assess and treat them on site and refer them [for treatment] when necessary.”
Each vehicle will carry 20 litres of water to address the challenge of water restriction imposed by traditional nurses on initiates, which results to dehydration.
The funds will also cover payment for overtime and airtime of DMOs.
The department is one of the stakeholders and supporters of customary male initiation, which is led by traditional leaders.
“The department is trying to prevent loss of life and injuries during circumcision and initiation.
“Our main responsibility is to ensure the health status of the initiate through prescreening and monitoring of initiates,” said Kupelo.
In the 2016 winter season, there were 24 deaths and four penile amputations while last year’s summer claimed 31 lives and there were four amputations.
Kupelo said it cost about R1 000 a day to treat an initiate with circumcision complications. Contracting additional professional nurses for monitoring and additional hospitals would be considered if the need arose, he added.
For clinical support, contracting general practitioners was an option while doctors from the department would also be used to treat the initiates, both in the initiation schools and those admitted in hospitals.
About 40 000 boys are expected to undergo the rite this season and the focus will be on the troubled O R Tambo and Alfred Nzo districts.
“We have considered additional bed space in the form of park homes to be put up in hospitals grounds in highly pressured hospitals.
“In winter the focus is on the O R Tambo and Alfred Nzo districts and our facilities there are always highly burdened, resulting in a lack of bed space to admit initiates.
“Shortage of staff to care for additional patients and the food budget increase this implies also puts us under pressure during the season,” he said.
The department’s technical team plans to conduct preseason visits to the districts to ensure readiness and monitor implementation of the plan to prevent and manage initiation-related complications and death.
Cogta MEC Fikile Xasa has ordered that all municipalities be actively involved in the traditional initiation programme and that they release enough resources.
“The Buffalo City Metro is leading in this and makes us proud,” said Xasa.
“But there are those municipalities who are reluctant and need us to have a little chat with them.
“They must know traditional initiation is part of their competence and preventing loss of lives rests with them as well.
“These boys are their residents.”
This year’s traditional winter initiation season will be launched at the East London City Hall by Xasa and Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders chairman Nkosi Ngangomhlaba Matanzima as part of a campaign to strengthen and enhance implementation of the new monitoring and intervention strategy on initiation in the province. —