Country’s dire health shortages hitting children
Minister reveals doctors’ crisis in paediatrics
JUST 10 registered paediatric cardiologists – and they are split between the public and private health care sectors.
This was one of the shocking figures that formed part of Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi’s address yesterday at the launch of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital in Parktown, the brainchild of Madiba more than eight years in the making.
It was obvious, said Motsoaledi, that there was a “great urgency” to address the dire shortages in specialised services for children.
Within the state sector, he revealed there were just three paediatric clinical haematologists, five developmental paediatricians, 10 paediatric critical care specialists and seven paediatric oncologists, to service 60 percent of the country’s population.
“The hospital will play a key role in assisting us to fill these gaps to ensure that future generations of children have better access to these highly specialised services,” he said.
Those who contributed to the building of the 200-bed quaternary-care facility, which will treat local children and those from the Southern African Development Community region, had fulfilled a legacy the former statesman “would be proud of ”.
While there had been an exodus of specialist nurses and doctors from South Africa, management of the new hospital were confident that once it opened early next year, it would operate with an “adequate and highly qualified” staff complement.
Dr Victor Litlhakanyane, head of the team commissioned to open the hospital, said the training of 11 specialist doctors as well as nurses had already begun.
These specialists were being trained at Wits University and the University of Cape Town.
The children’s hospital would operate on a strict referral system.
“We encourage mothers and caregivers to take their sick children to the clinic and other facilities to be assisted. In turn, those children will be referred to this hospital based on the fact that they meet the criteria for them to be here,” said Litlhakanyane.
“We will not be open for business tomorrow or next week. But we will take this time to continue with training and implement all the final touches. In February, we will then assign staff members and start treating patients.”
Sibongile Mkhabela, the chief executive of the hospital, lauded the role played by civil society in the building of the hospital when what had started as an idea transcended into a large facility which would benefit impoverished, sickly children, but was not owned by government or the private sector.
For mer president Nelson Mandela’s widow Graça Machel acknowledged the role played by those behind the scenes, such as bricklayers, in the building of the hospital.
“Their names may not be written anywhere on this hospital, but each and every brick that went into building has a place here,” she said.
Machel said it had to be remembered that the hospital existed for children who remained vulnerable members of society. The hospital is still in need of donations from the public for its operations.