Thanks, doctor, for going public

One can only imagine the desperation felt by a doctor in a government hospital in Limpopo, after he was forced into begging for donations from the public to provide heaters to keep babies warm in the hospital’s paediatric wards. Doctor LE Rambuwane pleaded for R15 000 to buy and install 50 heaters in the wards.

He wrote: “I serve in a public hospital, which lacks many things, and with very little support from the powers that be …” In some wards, he said, patients were freezing because of the broken windows and the thin, inadequate blankets the hospital supplied.

As if that level of neglect by the provincial department of health was not bad enough, it has emerged that the civil servant mandarins in the department threatened to take action against him because of his “unauthorised” conduct. This was despite the fact that his begging letter had been signed off by the hospital’s senior clinical manager and its acting CEO.

In fact, it was the use of official government stationery – including a departmental letterhead – which pushed the head office officials in intimidation mode. Rambuwane was threatened with disciplinary action for “contravening department policy”.

Even those comments, made on public radio by department spokesperson Neil Shikwambana, were later “explained” by him as not applying specifically to Rambuwane, but to anyone in governmental service.

Limpopo health MEC Phophi Ramathuba has promised to procure blankets and other supplies for this hospital and others across the province.

What would have happened, though, had Rambuwane not gone public? The answer is simple: nothing. We understand government is under huge pressure to provide services and that it is struggling to keep up financially, not least because there are bigger numbers to cater for (because of illegal migration) than perhaps originally planned for .

But babies cannot be allowed to freeze.