Shocking health and police facilities revealed in Joe Gqabi district
As the Bhisho legislature’s multi-party MPLS descend on the Joe Gqabi district this week for their outreach programme, worrying revelations about the state of health facilities and police stations in the district were laid bare during the “taking legislature to the people” exercise.
While the legislature has found that infrastructure at most health facilities in the district is “dilapidated” to such an extent that it now poses a health hazard to both staff and patients, it also raised concerns that some police stations in the area are without electricity and use candles at night, among a plethora of damning findings.
The MPLS this week left the comfort of their legislature chamber in Bhisho and instead sat at the Bensonvale College in Sterkspruit as part of their annual three-day initiative.
In preparation for this week’s house sitting, all legislature committees had previously visited the Joe Gqabi district, which encompasses rural local municipalities such as Elundini, Senqu and Walter Sisulu, to perform oversight on government facilities and projects, with their findings tabled this week.
The legislature’s health portfolio committee visited a number of facilities in the district before a report was compiled for the house sitting.
Presenting the findings, committee chair and ANC MPL Nozibele Nyalambisa on Tuesday painted a bleak picture of health facilities in the district.
Nyalambisa said most of the hospitals had no specialist nurses and the process of employing this category of officials took too long.
Nyalambisa said it was a deep concern for her committee that the staff shortages “cut across all categories” in most of the facilities, including in the emergency medical services unit.
“The infrastructure of most of the facilities is dilapidated and therefore poses a health hazard to both staff and patients, which in turn will also lead to litigation,” Nyalambisa revealed.
Among the committee’s damning findings was that;
● There is no dentist at Taylor Bequest and patients have to travel to Matatiele or Maclear to access dental services;
● There are delays in the delivery of diesel as it is procured from Johannesburg;
● There are no X-ray services in Taylor Bequest and patients have to be ferried twice a week to Maclear Hospital, which also puts the burden on Maclear and also exposes patients to danger;
● Professional nurses are unavailable at Maclear Hospital;
● The hospital does not have a data capturer and statistics do not reflect the correct bed utilisation rate;
● There is no proper fence at Maclear and burglary is rife;
● There was no leadership at Burgersdorp hospital at the time of visits;
● The pharmacist is acting as CEO at James Calata Hospital and the pharmacy there is operating without a licence;
● There are infrastructural challenges such as the male ward being opposite the maternity ward; and
● The state mortuary in Maletswai hospital is non-compliant.
The MPLS also found that most clinics in the area “are still confronted with serious infrastructural challenges, which include inadequate space, nonavailability of proper fence and unreliable water supply and dilapidated structures.”
She said it was equally concerning that Macacume clinic was currently operating from a school, due to lack of decent premises, that there was no visiting doctor and no basins for new babies at Venterstad.
On Wednesday, community safety portfolio committee chair and ANC MPL Babalwa Lobishe turned the focus on the state of police stations in the area, and she too painted a gloomy picture of the facilities.
Lobishe’s team had done oversight at the Sterkspruit, Mount Fletcher, Lady Grey, Katkop, Maletswai and Ugie police stations.
Common among them were challenges relating to dilapidated infrastructure, shortage of working space, holding cells, staff and vehicles, with some stations said to be without any ablution facilities.
Some officers even have to use candles and torches at night, while the Sterkspruit police station is not connected to the police emergency 10111 line.
Many of the stations do not even have divers and have to rely on the East London team hundreds of kilometres away.